Master of His Fate James Tobin (free e books to read online .txt) 📖

“Yes!” he shot back.

“Then you’re not doing it right.”

“Prove it!”

She did.

For the first time ever, FDR learned how to exert control over one isolated set of muscles at a time. With practice, he got so he could move just his toes without moving his whole foot, and he could move his foot without moving his entire leg. Control over isolated muscle groups meant greater control over his balance and coordination, which in turn might mean moving around with less risk of a fall and less awkwardness in his motions.

They spent another week on these new techniques. FDR listened as Plastridge reminded him of the principles of long-term physical rehabilitation, how the combination of practice and perseverance might lead, even after all this time, to substantial improvements in his ability to manage his movements. Each skill demanded concerted, deliberate practice. “It is like an athlete going into training,” she remarked. “He must work long and hard to develop and perfect himself in his specialty.”

It was a new start. FDR sensed possibilities he had not seen before. He was re-imagining the task before him, and it looked far more feasible than the impossible challenge of complete recovery.

Just before Christmas, as Plastridge was about to return to Chicago, she sat down to dinner with members of the family. A gift-wrapped box sat before her on the table. She looked at FDR.

“Open it!” he ordered.

Inside she found a gold ring with a lapis stone. It was engraved: FOR ALICE LOU PLASTRIDGE, WITH WARM REGARDS FROM HER OLD FRIEND, F.D. ROOSEVELT.

On January 30, 1927, FDR turned forty-five years old. Two weeks later, he got himself off the train in Warm Springs and went back to work on all fronts.

Now that his panel of expert orthopedists had endorsed the idea of a polio treatment center at Warm Springs, he supervised the legal and financial work of organizing the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, the nonprofit corporation that would own and operate the center. He made phone calls and held meetings to make sure the construction of his own cottage would be done soon. He met with contractors about the rehabilitation of the Meriwether Inn. He bought more land, including a lovely wooded promontory called Dowdell’s Knob, where he loved to take people for picnics. He gave speeches to church groups and civic groups. Politics intruded when his new friends among the Democrats of Georgia “boomed” him for president, meaning they spread talk in the party and the press that he would make a better nominee in 1928 than Al Smith, whom the southerners feared. Once again FDR had to shut them down, insisting he could and would not be a candidate. When Missy LeHand became seriously ill, he had to make sure she received care, then arranged for her to go home for an extended rest.

Yet from February to May, he made time to practice walking with Helena Mahoney. Never since the beginning of his recovery in 1921 had he been so disciplined, and he began to see real results. In pursuit of his new and realistic goal—to walk with help while drawing as little attention as possible to his handicap—he made more concrete progress in three months than in all the years since 1921.

Mahoney studied his movements. She was interested in more than just the latest tricks in how he could best get in or out of a chair or up or down a step. She was focused on the connections between the brain’s nervous system and the body—how they changed with prolonged paralysis, and how they could be restored bit by bit. “Most of us have experienced instability in walking after even a short illness,” she would write. “We called it weakness, but a major part was lack of coordination and balance. [They] are elusive qualities. They must be reeducated if unused for any length of time.” For the patient who has only some muscles in working order, walking is an entirely new skill. “He needs help to train unaccustomed muscles to function smoothly and spontaneously. Normal people experience some of this difficulty when learning a new game; a beginner at golf or tennis, or even at a new dance, is usually slow and awkward and only practice gives us a smooth performance.

“Just as there are what athletes call ‘naturals’ in sport, there are some patients who will instinctively know how to use their muscles to obtain a certain function. Others must be patiently taught to do the same thing.”

FDR was one who had to be taught, and now that Mahoney understood what he could and couldn’t do, she delivered. She showed him a way of moving that would attract the least possible attention to his disability while allowing him to say, as he so much wanted to, “I can walk.”

We don’t know exactly how she taught him the technique, but it probably started with her simply saying: “Watch this.”

In her right hand she held a cane, planting the tip firmly on the floor just ahead of her. On her left side she placed an assistant, then grasped his arm just above the elbow. She kept both of her legs locked at the knees, like FDR in his braces. Then she began to rock her weight slightly to the left, then slightly to the right, just enough to pull each foot off the floor. As she rocked to the right, her left foot rose. When she rocked to the left, her right foot rose … just a bit, half an inch or so, enough to clear the floor. Right … left … right … left again … and this time, as she leaned left, she twisted her upper body slightly to the left and swung her right foot forward a few inches … rock to the right, twist to the right, and she swung the left foot forward. She was doing it with the strength of her upper body, swinging the legs like two stiff pendulums. Next to her, the assistant swayed in rhythm with her. The only difference was