Polio survivor recalls battle with disease

Polio survivor recalls battle with disease

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Talmadge Griffith grew up battling polio and couldn’t play baseball with the other boys, he recalls, but considers himself blessed. 

“The doctors told my mother I’d be in a wheelchair by the time I was 35,” said Griffith now of Pickens in rural Madison County north of where he grew up in Canton on Miller Street. “I’m 72 now and I’m still walking. The Lord is looking after me.” 

Polio attacks and destroys nerve cells in the spinal cord, causing muscle loss, weakness, and paralysis. 

The CDC reports that the United States has been polio-free since 1979. Outbreaks occurred regularly in the United States through the 1950s with two major polio outbreaks in 1916 and in 1952.

Griffith was born in Louisiana and was diagnosed with polio at just seven months old. He moved to Canton with his family in the early 1950s after his father took a job at a saw mill on Miller Street. 

Griffith couldn’t walk until he was around two years old. Over time, he had surgeries to battle his muscle growth in his left leg, which was the main source of the polio infection. 

Griffith’s first surgery was at seven years old. His left foot was growing toes-down, and the surgeons had to cut his ankle cord. 

His foot then started to grow sideways, which required a second surgery. Screws were also put in his left leg. 

His third surgery came in 1968 when he graduated high school when his doctors noticed his left leg was swinging outward due to muscle not developing, which led to an unsuccessful third surgery. 

“I had to learn to walk three different times after my surgeries,” Griffith said. “The hardest part for me wasn’t learning to walk with my disease, it was me not being able to participate in the activities the other kids were doing.” 

He was deeply upset about baseball but was told by his father that he was a lot better off than most people with polio and that’s when he realized just how fortunate he is. 

Griffith remembered another person getting polio around the same time as he did, and they didn’t even make it to their teenage years. He recalls seeing people suffering from the disease with braces on their arms, legs, and other parts of their body. 

“All I can do is thank God,” he said. “I’m very lucky.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to impact people all over the world, Griffith plans to get the vaccine. 

His entire family plans to get the coronavirus vaccine once it’s readily available for the public. 

“Until we get a cure for COVID, we need to make sure to wear masks and stay as clean and safe as possible,” he said. “It’s been a tough year for this county and the world.”

Griffith is retired with his wife, Annie C. Griffith, who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

They have four children and nine grandchildren and enjoy spending time with one another and going the Florida panhandle during the summers. 

Griffith was an electronics technician and self-employed at Griffith Stereo Service in Ridgeland. 

“I had a choice in high school to go into a profession that didn’t involve me using my legs that much,” he said. He retired in 2006.

“I remember seeing braces all the way up and down their arms and legs,” he recalled. “As I’ve said, I was one of the lucky survivors of polio. I do have to walk with a cane, but I can still walk thanks to the Lord blessing me.”






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