By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Ann Lee Hussey of South Berwick, Maine, recently spent three weeks in India with the Groners of Dowagiac after journeying to Egypt last November.
Traveling with the Groners held out the promise of getting to see many exotic places.
Hussey, who will stay in town through the premiere of the Rotary International centennial documentary featuring the Groners which shows at 7 p.m. Saturday at Southwestern Michigan College, wanted to give "voice to the mother crying beside the bed of her limp, feverish baby … the little girl who wears the dust of the streets, calluses on the palms of her hands and on her knees and on the tops of her feet from dragging herself around … the little boy on a skateboard with flip-flops on his hands who looked up at me and asked, 'Where can I go to have the surgery that will make me tall like you?' I speak for them because they really have no voice. I've seen their hardships, I understand and I've met them all personally."
Hussey contracted polio at 17 months old.
Paralyzed from the waist down, her parents encouraged her through physical therapy and multiple surgeries.
They sat her on the kitchen table and filled her mother's purse with sand so she could do leg lifts. Leg surgery in third grade left her with a cast to her waist.
After six NIDs, or National Immunization Days with Groner and his wife, Barbara, Hussey has frequented India's back alleys and the poorest parts of Egypt.
Once they were stuck in an elevator between the fifth and sixth floors, worried that the car would plunge to the ground and shatter her withered leg.
In little more than an hour, speaking barely a word, she and Groner and another Rotarian immunized more than 500 children. "We left there tired, but truly exhilarated."
Three specific regions "that harbor the last stronghold of the polio virus" have been targeted in India to make it polio-free by the end of June.
In the state of Uttar Pradesh, where they were Feb. 27, "The challenge is the sheer density of the population, the remoteness of the villages and the concentration of remaining resistant Muslim families," Hussey said.
Visiting corrective surgery units and rehabilitation clinics is "always the hardest part of the trip for me emotionally," Hussey said. "I can still vividly recall my first trip to a foot clinic, where they were demonstrating their use of calipers, or braces, and prosthetics. They basically paraded a group of school children in front of us. I caught the eye of a beautiful little Indian girl about the age of 9. Her dark brown eyes sparkled as she gave me an unforgettable smile. My eyes traveled down to her legs showing beneath her dress. I was instantly reminded of myself when I was her age. It was the same slender right leg, the metal brace with the leather straps, the same limp.
Hussey said her last trip was no different in that respect.
Hussey attended a celebration of life for polio survivors at Harvard Medical Center in Boston in conjunction with this month's 50th anniversary of the Salk vaccine.
The March of Dimes campaign, founded in 1938, introduced volunteerism and philanthropy into the lives of millions of Americans for the very first time. "Much of it can be directly related to the campaign Rotary International (has waged since 1985 to wipe out polio).
As stated in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "Success is in our grasp/as long as we have hands to clasp … Let us all learn from the Grinch and allow our hearts to grow three sizes."