Joan Marie Peters Vandeventer, Ogden, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, March 6, 2010

Transcript (28 pages) of interview by Becky B. Lloyd with Joan Marie Peters Vandeventer on March 6, 2010

Ogden (b. 1944) grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She discusses her family. She contracted polio at age seven. She recalls being sick with a sore throat, getting sicker, and being taken to the hospital for a spinal tap. She developed difficulty breathing, was transferred to the Children's Hospital in Boston and was placed in an iron lung for about 24 hours initially. She thereafter was in and out of an iron lung for short periods of time as was needed. She was in the hospital for a total of three weeks and recalls the care she received there. Therapies included hot pack treatments and, having lost the ability to swallow, therapy to regain that ability. In addition, she received speech therapy to relearn how to properly make certain sounds. She came home from the hospital with smaller muscles and weakness on her left side, for which she wears a lift in her left shoe. She had also lost the ability to properly cough, sneeze and laugh. She engaged in self-administered physical therapy at home to retrain and regain those lost abilities, a process that took many years. She discusses the challenges of returning to school. Ms. Ogden studied and earned degrees in mathematics and works as an actuary. She is married and gave birth to one child. This interview is part of the Polio Oral History Project. Interviewer: Becky Lloyd