But Alexander is still alive today. He\u2019s 74 and resides in Dallas\u2014and for the second time in his life, living through the outbreak of a virus that he is at a high risk of suffering from. Unlike the polio virus, the coronavirus hasn\u2019t been disproportionately impacting children. Those most at risk of developing a severe case of COVID-19 are adults over 65 and those with underlying medical conditions. Alexander checks both boxes.\n
As the world awaits a vaccine, Alexander and his caretakers are limiting contact with others. He still relies on an iron lung to keep him alive. In fact, he\u2019s one of the last people in the world still using the machine.\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a big tin can,\u201d he tells me over Skype one morning in June. His head sticks out of the yellow tube, and I can hear the machinery expanding and compressing in the background. Between the noise and the fuzzy screen, it\u2019s sometimes hard to make out what he\u2019s saying. I find myself asking him to repeat himself. Alexander is patient with me and starts his sentences over. It\u2019s not the most efficient way to conduct an interview, but we\u2019re making do, given the circumstances.\n
Though more modern ventilators have been invented over the years, Alexander stuck with his iron lung. As a boy he learned how to breathe without it for extended periods of time\u2014a skill that opened doors for him. When he was 8, a physical therapist taught him how to \u201cfrog breathe,\u201d or use muscles in his mouth and throat to gulp air into his lungs.\n
Alexander was wary of health care professionals, scarred from the times in the hospital when they\u2019d forced him to try to breathe outside the lung, causing him to pass out. But the therapist convinced him to keep trying by making a deal with him: if he could learn to breathe outside the lung for three minutes, she would give him one of her boxer puppies.\n
\u201cIt was difficult, but I worked at it,\u201d Alexander says.\n
After working at it for a year, the puppy was his. Breathing on his own meant he could spend hours outside the iron lung. He adapted in other ways as well. His father fashioned a stick that he could put in his mouth to play with his toys. (Today, he uses a similar instrument to dial the phone and type on a keyboard.) He learned how to paint and write with a paintbrush or pencil in his mouth, too.\n
As he grew older, he realized that if he wanted to be successful at something, it would have to be something of the mind. \u201cI had to go to school,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was no other way.\u201d\n
One of the first students to attend the homebound program in his school district, Alexander ended up graduating at the top of his class. He then attended Southern Methodist University before transferring to UT to study economics and finance. \u201cI needed something bigger,\u201d he says. For the first time in his life, he was away from home.\n
When he got to Austin, though, his hired caretaker never showed up. He refused to call his parents for help, fearing they\u2019d take him home. \u201cI was so determined to do this,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought, I\u2019m going to die or I\u2019m going to go to school.\u201d\n
His first month at UT, students in his residence hall took care of him. They fed him and took him to class in his wheelchair. He says a lot of his professors were \u201cangels\u201d and believed in him. It took him seven years, but he graduated in 1978. And he wasn\u2019t done with school yet. He attended UT Law, but this time around, the professors weren\u2019t as encouraging. Alexander remembers one who brought him into his office and told him, \u201cYou don\u2019t look like a lawyer,\u201d and, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to pass my class.\u201d But he did.\n
He graduated in 1984 and passed the bar two years later. He spent decades as a lawyer in Dallas, practicing family law and taking on bankruptcy cases, representing clients in court from his wheelchair. When new clients came into his office, they\u2019d see the iron lung and often ask, \u201cWhat is that?\u201d\n
It\u2019s a moment Kathy Gaines, his caretaker of over 30 years, knows well. At the start of his career, he put an ad in the newspaper for a caretaker and Gaines responded. Before she met him, she\u2019d never seen an iron lung before. \u201cI walked in, and there was this big, yellow, monster machine, and I was like, \u2018Woah, what the hell is this?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cPaul likes that\u2014it\u2019s like, \u2018Wow, that\u2019s a cool car,\u2019 you know?\u201d\n
She started taking on tasks: cooking his meals, shaving his beard, brushing his teeth, tying his tie\u2014\u201cYou have to know how to tie a tie to help a lawyer,\u201d she says\u2014and eventually began working for him full time. Over the years, she\u2019s learned everything about him. She can tell if he\u2019s not getting enough oxygen, or when he\u2019s dehydrated. \u201cI know his body language so well, better than him,\u201d she says. \u201cHe gets mad at me. I say, \u2018Paul, drink.\u2019 He says, \u2018I\u2019m not thirsty.\u2019 I say, \u2018Paul, you are thirsty, drink.\u2019\u201d\n
\n
As Alexander aged, it became more difficult to breathe on his own. Now, he\u2019s completely confined to his iron lung. He stopped practicing law in the last few years and set a new goal: telling his life\u2019s story. Lying on his back in the iron lung, he wrote using a pen attached to a plastic stick. A mirror above his head reflected his notes back to him. He self-published his memoir, Three Minutes for a Dog, in April. It took eight years to complete. Gaines calls it \u201chis big victory.\u201d\n
One of the reasons Alexander wants to share his story is so people understand the severity of polio. After American virologist Jonas Salk developed a successful polio vaccine in 1955, countries began spearheading immunization campaigns. Since 1979, no cases of polio have originated in the U.S., meaning many Americans don\u2019t understand how prevalent polio once was. Children in the U.S. are vaccinated against the disease by the time they\u2019re 6. But vaccine-preventable diseases, like polio or measles or mumps, haven\u2019t disappeared. Though it\u2019s close to being eliminated, polio is still endemic in three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. And \u201cif we let ourselves become vulnerable by not vaccinating,\u201d the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns, \u201ca case that could touch off an outbreak of some disease that is currently under control is just a plane ride away.\u201d\n
\u201cPolio could come back,\u201d Alexander tells me. Now that we\u2019re living through a pandemic, his words, and the CDC\u2019s, don\u2019t sound alarmist at all. As I talk with Alexander, a living reminder of how an invisible virus can alter one\u2019s life forever, it\u2019s easy to draw parallels between the polio outbreak and the coronavirus pandemic. The calls to avoid gatherings of people. The fears. The anticipation of a cure. I find myself reading the pages of his memoir, in which he implores the world not to forget about the destructive consequences of polio, with a new sense of urgency. \u201cIt is extremely important,\u201d he writes, \u201cthat you know what this is and what I have had to live with.\u201d\n
From top: Courtesy of Paul Alexander; Alamy Stock Photo; courtesy of Paul Alexander\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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