Wes Hazlitt is a proud husband, father and grandfather. He is a polio survivor and is impacted by post polio syndrome. We talk to Wes about his journey.
TRANSCRIPT
Peter Tonge 0:20
Welcome to this episode of Talking Rotary. I’m Peter Tonge and I’m a member of the Rotary Club of Winnipeg Charleswood.
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And I’m Mandy Kwasnica past president and also a member of the Rotary Club of Winnipeg. Charleswood. We are so happy you have joined us here and I are so excited for this new podcast and thankful to our many listeners. Let’s start talking Rotary.
Peter Tonge 1:07
Hi, everyone, welcome to another episode of talking Rotary. I’m Peter tonge. And I’m here with fellow Winnipegger.,West Hazlitt. Wes, welcome to the show.
Wes Hazlitt 1:18
Hey, thanks, Peter. It’s great to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you. I can’t wait to learn more about you and share my story.
Peter Tonge 1:26
Great. I’m looking forward to it for Wes is very familiar with something that most Rotarians know a lot about. And that’s polio. So we’re going to talk the west today and learn about his life experience. So Wes, you contracted polio, very young and curious and sort of the impact it had on your life as you were growing up?
Wes Hazlitt 1:49
Oh, it wasn’t positive impact growing up. I’m not sure what your life growing up was. But mine was one of isolation during my early years, I had two older brothers and a couple of younger brothers that developed but kids at that age, you know, they played hide and seek kick the can baseball, soccer, all these kinds of things at school. And because I used crutches had like braces and whatnot. I was the last one picked for the baseball team. And I was needed a pinch runner and a lot of isolation is is a young kid growing up, right. And that, of course, transitioned into high school where I did develop a couple of good friends but limited from a lot of activities because you weren’t able to do that stuff.
Peter Tonge 2:56
Yeah. But as you get older, right only became more and more active. So how did that transition happen? Or,
Wes Hazlitt 3:02
well, most people that have polio, want to appear kind of normally. And I was no different than that. My brother’s water, skied, sailed, rode bikes and did stuff like that. I wanted to ride a bike. It took me a long time, a lot of balls, I learned how to do it with the one leg. I had partial use though. And then I tried many years to learn how to water ski. You can only only add one ski, the other leg or use the wave at people beside the shore to do it, and I had people helping me because I could not get out of the water. What I didn’t know what that time was that my left leg had not returned to normal. Okay, I thought like when I was young, I walked with two braces joined at the groin, right and I eventually progressed to one below the knee brace. And then I got rid of that brace and I used crutches to go back and forth to school but I mean around the house and that kind of thing. I didn’t need them short distances. I didn’t need them. I didn’t use them in the school. Just going back and forth because I’ve walked from Wildwood park up to Vincent Massey is pretty close to a mile to school and back. And
Peter Tonge 4:34
that less of an adventure in the wintertime.
Wes Hazlitt 4:37
Or you know, the even walking from the junior high school. To my home in the winter. Winter was snowing and the snow is deep. I couldn’t drag my legs very well. There was a lady that some days when I was really cool. It was a boat Maybe a city block and a half from my house. And she would invite me in for lunch. And I could go back to school. So that was that was good. Because the Yeah, it was difficult and it was difficult to university. First year university at the University of Manitoba, I was in the Faculty of Agriculture. I had classes in a tear building, St. Paul St. John’s Buller building the plant science building, and you only have so much time between classes. And I couldn’t walk the tunnels because they took too long. So I had to walk outside, so they call me to knock I had this big park and my briefcase full of books with a strap over my shoulder. And I would be late for class because there’s, you have to walk from the tear building, if you’re familiar over to St. Paul’s College for the chem lab. Well, that’s a hike, and to hike and I was walking in, whatever. That was kind of what I did. But I mean, my focus was to do everything that everybody else can do. Up and down stairs, climb ladders, do everything raised children and all of all of them.
Peter Tonge 6:22
Right. And you did you had a family, right?
Wes Hazlitt 6:25
Two boys. I was very lucky. I was introduced to a woman who was taking nursing training. She’s from New York and Gail. We met 50 years ago, next month, and we’ve been married for 48 years. Wow. Two boys who were born in 77 and 79. And I’ve got a couple of grandchildren. No, boy nine and daughter granddaughters.
Peter Tonge 6:55
Five. And that’s even better than being a parent. I bet.
Wes Hazlitt 6:59
You cannot believe it. It’s so much fun. We never had any girls in my family. I have four brothers, right? And we have daughters. We just had the two boys, right? And so my wife was, of course he wants somebody to go shopping with. I’ve never had a girl I had no idea. We have this most dramatic, funniest girl, he refers to me as grumpy. Just because she thinks that’s funny. Granted. She’s hilarious. And I don’t know whether you heard my interview on CBC Radio. It was about our recent trip up to Gimli with our son, his wife and the two grandkids. I did hear it. Yeah. And I found the movie chair their theater.
Peter Tonge 7:48
Yeah, it wasn’t that neat. Let’s let’s tell our audience about that.
Wes Hazlitt 7:52
I was so excited. We were in Mexico 1012 years ago, and they had this thing there. I love to swim. I swam competitively as a native mentioned, in the 60s, the Sami swimming ban pool and the woman there says you should be swimming with the parity. And they had different classes then so I ended up swimming there. But I was in the water all the time. Because I swam very well I learned how to swim up Balkan link and with your legs being weak and having to use braces and all this crap hole in the water. I was free. Absolutely free. I can have fun. I can swim better than most people. I knew. I dived. And so I mean, I went to chip walk pool, I drove up the top diving board there. And now I can’t walk across the room. So that’s pretty funny.
Peter Tonge 8:52
That’s that’s just all part of getting older as all of them. Tell. Tell me a little bit more about the Moby chair though, because most of our listeners probably don’t know what it is.
Wes Hazlitt 9:02
Well, the Moby chair has big rubber wheels on it, Peter, okay, yellow rubber wheels. And that’s designed so it’ll roll across the sand. And in Mexico, these guys said we get in the, in the ocean, if you want to use this chair, they drag this thing out there was in rough shape. But whatever. They threw me on there, and these Mexican guys, it carried me down and dumped me in the Atlantic. And the waves were, you know, thrown all over me because my legs flopping around because it’s so weak. And I’m in the water. Oh my god, I can swim in the ocean. I was so excited. And they said just wave your hand when you want to come out. And we might have to come and get me into carry me up the hill that charmy off and then taking it back down to the beach and dumped me on the recliner. And so when I went to Gimli and having been to Lake Winnipeg for all those years going To that triple Children’s Campus telling you about love swimming in Lake Winnipeg. And the Gimli side, it’s quite rough something. But I went, and they have a first aid, like location there. And here’s this movie chair. And I talked to the young guy was there. I said, Can I use that? And he says, yep. Oh my god, I got this was Monday. This is Tuesday, what’s gonna rain all day. I said, I have to talk to my son and see if he’d be willing to drag me in. And he says, Yep, I’m here. I’ll help. And so Wednesday, I got there, he wasn’t there. But two other kids were there, they dragged the chair out. And I went into the water. Oh, my God. It was makes me cry. So much fun. There’s my nine year old grandson, and he’s never been in the water with me. And he was so excited. We raised and I beat him. No, both my rotators are torn. So I can’t swim really well, on distances like I used to. But I can beat this little guy. Jacket. And then we played catch football and my son, you know, he hasn’t swam with me since that’s probably a kid. Right? So it’s been decades for me since I was able to get it any water pools have become inaccessible to me. We can talk more about that later. But this will feature was so exciting. And then coming out, there was nobody around to help. And my son’s struggling trying to pull this overweight gentleman who’s his dad out of the syrup. And the water of course is pulling on you in his chair. It’s like a you know, a lawn chair kind of straps and everything for your legs and the whole thing you got to get in at one day, we got to take you there, you know.
Peter Tonge 12:14
Anyway, be cool.
Wes Hazlitt 12:16
He’s dragging me out in the seat gentlemen sees that he’s having trouble. Right? You run over and he grabs one side. You’re right up the hill. Right. And my grandson was so excited. We were only staying till Thursday. And he wanted me to go in again on Thursday. And I said Jake, I can’t do that. But the time I get in the water and do that. That stress and exercise and then they get old and they got to change in their change rooms because they’re all telethon and get my braces on and everything’s too exhausting. So we’ll see when go swimming because he wanted to go in with grandpa. But we’re throwing the ball around and plan and diving. It was it was awesome. Moby chair made the difference. And I have contacted city of Winnipeg about access to because they have pools that have zero entry in a couple of pools. Kildonan place was one. I didn’t see any access there. So I caught the city one of the oh my god, I cannot believe I I spoke to Susanna they’re out of accessibility Peter. And within one day, I had a call from Eric Schmidt who manages Margaret grant. Siva Tao Bonnie Vidal Bramante. She talked to me for almost an hour Peter, about accessibility. We talked about the lack of accessibility at their new accessible washroom at at Crescent drive Park, right about my inability to get into the swimming pools. And she took and door openings, all kinds of things that you encounter electric doors that don’t open properly, all this kind of stuff was all spawned by this. This moment. Well, the story because, you know, CBC Radio, contact me because they saw my story on the mall and Gimli and it’s just been going nuts. And it was so much fun. I can’t wait to do it. Again. We’re going to Mexico in November. And my grandson can’t wait to swim with me. There’s a zero entry pool there. I’ve already rented something like the Moby chair so I can get in the pool there. And if my son’s up to it, he can drag me in the ocean and feed me to the fishes in the ocean.
Peter Tonge 14:55
That sounds great to me. Yeah, that sounds really bright. So when Right when I distribute this podcast in a number of weeks, one of the things that I will do is I will include the link to that radio story because it’s such a great story. It’s it’s really one of those feel good stories. And it’s obvious from hearing and how much what a great impact that had for you and for your family. So that’s, that’s really terrific.
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Peter Tonge 15:54
Now, we’re for a fact a little bit about post polio syndrome, because most people who didn’t take bones, but a lot of people that have had polio that then ended up coming up against post polio syndrome later in life.
Wes Hazlitt 16:10
Yeah, how does that impact me? It doesn’t impact everybody that had polio. It impacts people who live their whole life not knowing they had any ramifications from polio, right, and it reaches them 4050 6070 years old. It occurs generally between 15 and 20 years later, my first things started to change for me in the 70s, I was around 25. And I started to fall down. And most of the time I’d cut the grass to the, to the snow clearing and that kind of stuff. And and I didn’t obviously use crutches or, or anything, and I would start falling down. I didn’t know what that was. But it progressed. And you don’t notice that when you have post-polio You don’t notice little changes. Okay, at a certain point, Peter, and all of a sudden, it’s like, you fell off a cliff, there’s, there’s a drastic change, you didn’t notice the micro changes that were going on, you get to a point where that muscle group can no longer function in a macro way. Okay? You know, where it’s able to lift weights and do all kinds of stuff as a DJ. Things are getting heavy. That was as I was 25. By the time I was 3536, it started to fall down inside. And my doctor Richard, well, his mom had polio. And I had actually met him at the crippled children’s camp. He was a counselor there. And he became our family doctor. And he was my doctor. And so he was able to help me manage through the changes from polio. And when I started to have these issues in the 80s, he referred me to a Dr. Valentine at the rehab hospital. I had experience with post polio, which I’d never heard of. And they go through all kinds of tests. They do nerve conduction studies. And you know, they put these little things on and they measure how long it takes for the electricity to get from one point to another, they test your reflexes, and it took quite a long time. And then I went to all the testing was done. They’re basically eliminating everything else that could be causing your condition. They know I have polio. And this fella knew about post polio syndrome, what doctors do not know about today. And he sat me down he said, Wes, this is what’s going to happen. And when he told me what was going to happen, I said no damn way. I don’t accept those kinds of things. He told me at this point, Peter, I was not using crutches to walk around outside or anything. I mean, I’ve burned my car at Walker block, whatever, right? Meeting wasn’t easy as other people but it was okay with me. I just swing the leg didn’t work. And I got around. He said, Wes, you’re going to be in a wheelchair. You didn’t say power wheelchair just said wheelchair. Yeah. I said well, the only thing I’ve used wheelchairs for is sports and to vote for that. Sports anymore. And anyways, I was with the Manitoba wheelchair sports and Rec and post-polio was an impact on me that I was quite strong. And I was a good basketball player volleyball players swimmer, I showed your pitcher nice sharp putting Believe it. And so I was able to do everything but over did everything. Like I used I was upper body strength was strong, they made me go to visit class and I couldn’t do much or hang from the rings, I’d actually do my body oath, you know, parallel holding onto these rings, and look one leg with the other leg, and handstands, all that kind of stuff. And this guy’s telling me, I’m going to end up in a wheelchair, no. And so, you know, I fought against it. And electric muscle stimulation, exercise, walk two kilometers, once or twice a day, every day. Okay. Then we went up to Hekla. And I walked from the Lakeview resort there, up to the lighthouse with no crutches at all, I said, I’m healed to my wife. Look at that. Postpone is kind of funny that way theater it the the impact that over use, as is not immediate. You don’t feel it today. You feel it, maybe two days later. And then you don’t put it together with what caused it because it was two days ago, a young person with a family and everything and you’re doing stuff. You don’t remember this stuff. Case thing, my wife would say, you know, what about I snot I was two days ago, whatever, you know, it didn’t impact me. And I just every time, post-polio has impacted me, I’ve fought back against it. And then the rebound, takes you even further the other way. So advocacy right now working with the rotary, and one of the groups they put together, is to try to inform people that had polio, to conserve, to preserve, because if you overuse like I did and avoid the diagnosis, the ramifications may not be positive,
Peter Tonge 22:16
if you know what I understand. And the group that you’re referring to us, our listeners know is the rotary World Disability Advocacy Group, and they have a post-polio subsection that I know that you’ve been involved with, and only pick these involved with, she’s also been a guest on my podcast. And I drop in every now and again, just to see what everybody’s up to. So it’s, there’s gonna be some good work done there. The other thing Wes, and I wanted to talk to you about is you are the president of the post-polio network of Manitoba. What can you tell me about that group and the work that they’re doing?
Wes Hazlitt 23:03
Well, that group used to be close to 100 people here, it’s recently with COVID. We couldn’t meet in person anymore. And the group is ancient. The thing with Polio is that it was largely eradicated. In Canada, the US and other Western countries with the vaccine that came out in 56. By 1988, pretty much eradicated in North America. Winnipeg, Manitoba, actually had the highest cases per 100,000 of any place in Canada, we had 286 people per 100,000 in Winnipeg. So Wow. 3000 polio infections in Winnipeg, that’s a lot. And our group used to be 100 people, but they’re older. The youngest guy in our group is 69. Okay. And most of them, Peter, are in their late 70s and early 80s. Right. So the numbers are dropping. As with COVID, we couldn’t go out to meetings anymore, right? A meeting March, April, May and June, and then we break for the summer and we meet December, October, November. Okay, great for the winter. And at those meetings with, you know, have a lunch and we’d have a speaker that was focused on things that would help people with post-polio and people with disability mobility issues, exercise queries, that kind of thing. Now that everybody’s getting older and with the particular guidance we’ve had, it’s been more social and less advocating and keeping to our mission, which is to help people that have polio. I became president in March and was supposed to happen before, but we couldn’t have our meeting because of COVID. And the people in my group were not open to zooming as most people have learned in the last couple of years. And so we didn’t have any meetings. So I became president in March. And you, you know, I’ve from post polio, the last two years have been drastically gone from using crutches outside the house to using crutches inside the house. To the point, I now use a power chair all the time, I can’t, I’ve had too many falls off, my shoulders are wrecked, they can’t be repaired because of my other issues. And so I’m in a power wheelchair all the time to preserve my energy. And leave me i, one of the big things with post-polio Peter is the fatigue. And it can be caused by stress can be caused by overuse, sleeping is an issue, it’s difficult, because you’re in pain, a hip hurts, knee hurts, shoulder hurts. So you’re always waking up from 578 times a night. And I have this little ring here that tells me how often I wake up. That’s surprising. Well, you
Peter Tonge 26:47
can always text me at 3am because I guarantee you I’ll be awake.
Wes Hazlitt 26:55
Anyways, my, the impact of it on me in the last number of months has been severe. And my wife has been vaccinating COVID at the convention center. And she was there. And she one of those patients came in and holding electric wheelchair. It’s called a travel bug. And it folds up and we 60 pounds, so I can’t manage it. But we can manage it. Somebody else they say Hey, could you help me get the car into my car? Yeah, go anywhere with it. And so that’s what got me to give me otherwise, I never would have seen the movie chair because I wouldn’t have been that far down the beach. possible way. I couldn’t walk that far. And I wouldn’t have seen it. And nobody else would have known what it was if they didn’t see it. And so this has changed my life this summer. And it’s changed my focus on how to use it at our meetings because I can’t walk in this building I have it’s dangerous sitting on a chair but doesn’t have arms because I I can fall off. So I’m in this chair all the time now. And I just feel like accessibility is a big issue. This is what came up and Gimli couldn’t get into a number of places. I brought up the accessibility with Chamber of Commerce there. She met with me the very next day, very open. And it helped me out a lot. We were at Winnipeg Beach, they were crosswalk going across and Winnipeg Beach, guess what’s at the other side of the crosswalk, and kind of about an eight inch curb? It’s like you’d have trouble stepping up if you had a walker. And, you know. So accessibility is an issue. So I’ve spoken to a number of our members about it. And they’re with me and this woman at the at the city. And I’m going to have people come over from the city to talk to our group. They have literally taken me around to show me what’s available in the pools and you would never know it.
Peter Tonge 29:14
You know, it’s a pretty well kept secret I think
Wes Hazlitt 29:17
it is they have put universal washrooms into a number of the the buildings in the pools and Eric from Margaret Grant took me there. He showed me the washrooms and the benches, the bars, the toilet. He’s used drop bars, somebody like me, who lifts himself up from the toilet with the with the bars. I need one on each side. The toilet teacher transfer, and many of the people in our group are the same. And so I said, You know what, there’s a lot of people with accessibility issues, and they’re not able to get into these places. They don’t understand there’s any reason for them to go there. So why would they? I already spoke to a woman who was in our group, who had managed to get on the March of Dimes, virtual groups. She’s been she’s learned so much. And she loves to swim. And she did not know that they have a seat that they can you can sit in and glory into the pool and get you out of the pool. She did not know what the the outdoor pools that have a zero entry access, which is kind of just, you know, you can kind of roll in or slope on here. Got to take your chair in there. You’re probably in a power chair like me?
Peter Tonge 30:40
No, I’m in a male chair. But I’m still not taking into Paul.
Wes Hazlitt 30:44
Ah, well, I have done that in Mexico. I just get off my chair. And when I’m ready to get out. Wait, somebody puts me up the ramp takes me out. Oh, great. I can’t take a power chair into this pool. So definitely not. And after I’d been in in in Lake Winnipeg, my grandson says like, aren’t you coming in? Like, I? I can’t come in? Well, do you know that I could. Do you know that at these pools, every pool, they have a wheelchair that you can use. And you can go into the water. And you know what the lifeguards can help you out. Because they are trained to if they have to put me on one of them stretcher boards or whatever. They don’t like to get wet, though lifeguards, but Ken told me that they are required to help you out if nice push you out. So look at that. If you like to go in the water and bob around in a light jacket or whatever, you can do it, the chairs there. And you can get somebody to roll in and get out and float or do whatever you do in the water. I don’t know.
Peter Tonge 31:57
I’m very much a bobber but I think that’s a cool thing.
Wes Hazlitt 32:00
And people don’t know about it. No, no.
Peter Tonge 32:03
That’s very true. And it’s very, very true. So I’m glad you’re discovering this thing. And we’re helping to spread the word. Now there’s one more thing that I want to talk to you about last because you’ve been doing a lot of media on this in the last couple of weeks. And that is that COVID appears or sorry, COVID. Polio, there’s the bee reappearing in North America in places like New York and whatever. And that’s, that’s a pretty frightening thing.
Wes Hazlitt 32:33
It is. And I was asked to write an article about it for CDC, which was published a week ago. And from that I got contact from a Rotary Club. And nobody’s ever asked me to become a member of Rotary Club, and you can’t just sign up somebody has to invite you.. And they never have in all my time. I have spoken to Rotary clubs a couple of times in the past.
Peter Tonge 32:58
Well, Wes, when when we’re done this interview all times about that, because I have a really good rotary solution for you. And you’ll be more
than welcome to be a member. And I’ll talk to you the details about that. ,
Wes Hazlitt 33:09
Pretty cool because I’m interested because rotary had huge involvement in getting polio vaccine around tthe world.
Peter Tonge 33:17
. Absolutely. And I’m glad you know about that.
Wes Hazlitt 33:21
Well the reason I’m interested here, I mean, you asked what the focus of our post-polio network is, and the people I’ve talked to already, is about accessibility. And it’s about, you know, the post-polio impact, and the kinds of changes that you can make, to live better in your home, and to live better outside the home. A lot of people don’t know about these things. And a lot of people can’t fund them. And Rotary has some involvement in that. And they can help connect people with people with disabilities share some common concerns, always. And that’s where I’ve been talking to members of post-polio network and said, you know, we can help others. Us. And so that’s going to be our focus going forward. And my concern about polio is huge. I’ve always said that. Polio is only a plane ride away. The situation has been massively exacerbated by COVID. With the shutdowns, many parents weren’t able to get to their doctor to give their kids their vaccinations for polio. There’s three vaccinations as a as an infant, and then you have a booster before you’re sick. So it’s a four, right? And many parents haven’t got that. They don’t see polio around because Whereas event, they didn’t grew up with any. They’ve never seen it measles, mumps, diphtheria, polio, never heard of it, whether it’s a vaccine, vaccines don’t work. And the COVID people are sharing the anti vaccine dogma. And they have no justification for polio vaccines work. And they have eradicated it and prevented millions of kids and adults from getting polio, and living the life that I’m living right now. And so I’m really concerned I wrote about it in the article, because Donna career asked me, her dad had polio. And we’ve spoken, you know, years before and I wrote the article because they’ve discovered polio virus in wastewater in the UK, in Israel, in New York State. And guess what? One unvaccinated person who’s in a community that’s quite large, and they don’t vaccinate has paralytic polio. Well, that only happens to somewhere between one and 5% of the people that get the polio virus. But guess what, if you get the polio virus, you can share it 60 days before you’re diagnosed, and up to eight weeks afterwards. So you literally have the ability to impact 1000s of people, one person with the virus, and it’s huge. Well, guess what? Today, Somebody contacted me from New York, because they found it in the city sewage. Previous to this, it was in that community, in northern part of the state. And it had been brought in by a traveler. This fella didn’t travel, but somebody travel is found in the wastewater of Israel. In Ukraine, they had a number of paralytic cases in kids prior to the Russian invasion. And, of course, with the invasion and the COVID. Lots of kids have never got their polio vaccinations, and they’ve got polio going there. It’s spreading in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, they figure in Ukraine, it came from the Zika SNAM. Guess what theater? Where are these kids today? All over the world. What’s happened in London, they have communities there where they have a lot of immigrants from areas where polio was still spreading. And if you’re one of the new breed of adults that have not vaccinated your children, and you end up circulating with some of these people that are, you know, spewing off the virus this possible you’re gonna get polio. And that concerns me. And as for two years, and I hear people talking about vaccines and anti vaccine rhetoric that is just not founded with polio and those other viruses, like smallpox, and it’s sad for me.
Peter Tonge 38:20
I agree with you completely. I really do. It’s a frightening thing. I hope we’re, I hope we’re able to turn it around because we were so close because Rotary, there was a big push to eradicate polio. Right. And we were down to two endemic countries in the world after working out that 20 years and now just see it reappearing. It’s just really, really frightening.
Wes Hazlitt 38:42
It is. It is there was a guy on the call yesterday from Uganda, tons of it in Uganda. Wow. And no way for them, they don’t have the financial resources or the physical resources to to get that vaccine to the kids that have been born.
Peter Tonge 39:03
Well, rotaries gonna have to get on it. And then why no more. The Rotary International will certainly be part of that because we’re still even we’re sending teams into most dangerous places in Afghanistan, but we feel that we don’t have we don’t have an option. So
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Peter Tonge 39:56
All right. So thank you so much for this sesson.
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