The New York Times is running an obituary of Martha Mason who spent six decades in an iron lung due to polio. Incredibly enough, she lived a long life that was in touch with the rest of the world, later helped by modern technology that allowed her to even publish a memoir of how she spent her days.
From her horizontal world — a 7-foot-long, 800-pound iron cylinder that encased all but her head — Ms. Mason lived a life that was by her own account fine and full, reading voraciously, graduating with highest honors from high school and college, entertaining and eventually writing.
She chose to remain in an iron lung, she often said, for the freedom it gave her. It let her breathe without tubes in her throat, incisions or hospital stays, as newer, smaller ventilators might require. It took no professional training to operate, letting her remain mistress of her own house, with just two aides assisting her.
“I’m happy with who I am, where I am,” Ms. Mason told The Charlotte Observer in 2003. “I wouldn’t have chosen this life, certainly. But given this life, I’ve probably had the best situation anyone could ask for.”
Obituary in the New York Times…
(hat tip: bookofjoe)
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