By Audio edited by Brenna Angel
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wuky/local-wuky-976115.mp3
LEXINGTON, Ky. – When 62-year-old Kate Harnett was four, her family went on vacation to Bear Mountain State Park in New York. They camped at Lake Tiorati, where a child was sick with polio.
By the time the family went home to New York City, all six of them had contracted the disease. But the polio hit Kate -- who went by Kathy at the time -- the hardest.
"The first doctor that came to see us thought that it was the flu. And then sometime probably not too long after that, she went to get me out of bed and I couldn't move my neck. That's when they suspected that I had polio."
Kate is the youngest of four daughters. She says her sisters were a big part of her support system.
"We did a lot of things together. We just all cared about one another a lot. And they all took responsibility for, you know, the baby."
Kate spent five months at Saint Charles hospital for Crippled Children in Brooklyn.
"Having polio is painful. Your muscles spasm. There's a condition where your skin can be very painful to the touch. I remember the pain. I've always remembered the pain."
Although everyone in Kate's family was affected by polio, she says they never really talked about it. The disease also hurt Kate's relationship with her mother.
"I'm so grateful for the freedom to be angry about what I lost by not knowing it. And I'm angry at the way children were treated and patients were treated in hospitals back then."
Kate Harnett, who contracted polio at age four, was eventually able to walk again. Her recording will be archived at the Library of Congress.
