When you are born “normal” and live the first ten years of your life almost like everyone else in your town, you don’t spend much time imagining what it must be like for other children not born with good health.  Gerald was destined to find out as he contracted polio when he was ten years old and was paralyzed, except for his left hand and arm.  Local doctors and clinics didn’t have the skills necessary to do the type of therapy needed, so his father would load him in the car, drive the eighty miles to do therapy, and then come home again.  Gerald’s father watched, learned, and persuaded the therapist to teach him how to help his son, and was able to take over this responsibility.  Gerald and his dad continued that therapy until he was able to walk unassisted on crutches.

This was when Gerald’s local physician recommended that he be evaluated at the Shriners Hospital for Children, in St. Louis, MO.  He was accepted for treatment and over the next two years had a full spinal fusion, after which he was sent home in a full body cast waiting for that surgery to heal.  Operations continued on his right leg and right hand and eventually he was able to walk well enough to continue school.

Gerald tells of how he was schooled at the Shriners Hospital and received his 8th grade diploma, while recovering at the hospital.  When he was finally released, he was able to walk well enough to attend his local schools, a major success, but his success story didn’t end there, as he eventually went on to get a Masters Degree at the University of Arkansas and then spent 30 years at the same job, until post polio disable him.

Gerald states that it was because of the care he received, at the Shriner’s Hospital, that he was able to live a “nearly normal life”.  That “nearly normal life” saw him get a pilot’s license, have a sailboat and four motorcycles.  Gerald and his wife have two grown children and live at home, with their Yorky dogs, which they built eighteen years ago.  

If lives could be measured on a Profit and Loss Statement, Gerald would definitely be a large part of the black ink on the profit side of that sheet.  Because people like you care, “Our kids” are given a chance for active, fulfilling lives.  Where their burns are healed, their broken bodies mended and their scars erased.  Where mended kids grow up to be productive adults and being “normal” is more than just a dream!  Thank you for “helping us help our kids”!

Gerald Herbaugh