KOTA KINABALU, Dec 17 — Contracting polio in this day and age is devastating, especially when immunisation against the potentially fatal childhood disease is readily available.
But what if you had no idea why you were getting fevers and gradually losing the use of your limbs?
That was the case for Dennis Yang, now 75.
Growing up in a kampung near the Baram river, Dennis was an able-bodied teenager in 1960 and used to run around with his younger brother Chris.
One day, Chris fell off a bridge into a ditch. He returned home more embarrassed than hurt apart from a few scratches and bruises.
But over the next few days, the four-year-old boy suffered from a fever and grew weaker, and eventually was unable to move because his legs hurt so much. Dennis, who shared a bedroom with Chris, also fell sick.
“I lost the use of one leg almost immediately, but my brother lost the use of both. We were both so young at the time so it was hard to make sense of it. We struggled along, trying to stand or walk, but mostly failing, and resorted to crawling around,” the older Yang told Malay Mail, following revived public interest in polio, an infectious and debilitating disease thought eradicated for decades — until a three-month-old Malaysian boy in Tuaran was diagnosed with it last week.
“My mother saved up and took us to a doctor in Brunei. At that time, they were thought to have more advanced medical capabilities because of the Shell oil and gas company that was set up there, with foreign doctors, but even they could not do anything for me. I don’t remember if they even knew what the problem was then.
“Some old Chinese superstitions made it seem like we did something wrong to displease the gods and my mother believed this, because doctors didn’t know what the cause was back then.”
Dennis recalled an idle couple of years after the illness, where he could only sit around until his father, dismayed at his elder son’s inability to walk, got a local carpenter to fashion a crutch.
“This was helpful as it forced me to learn how to walk. I went to school on crutches. Sometimes struggling as the walk was a couple of kilometres and muddy. But I managed, and have been on crutches for the rest of my life,” he said.
The crutches proved to be a life-changer for Dennis.
Both Yang boys excelled in school and were avid swimmers. Despite the daily inconvenience of using crutches to get around, Dennis said his childhood was similar to his peers in Sabah back then.
“Both me and my brother are strong swimmers. In fact, I taught my grandchildren how to swim,” he said.
While Dennis finished secondary school and eventually got a job in the civil service, his brother had to stop at primary five.
“At least I could walk with the help of crutches. But my brother, who could not walk at all and relied on a wheelchair to move around, did not let his physical handicap stop him. He went on to take over the family sundry shop, and turned it into the best supermarket in Baram,” the proud older brother said.
Chris eventually migrated to Australia where he is living now.
Dennis with his high school qualification was employed by the government as an administrator until retirement.
“Life is good. I am happily married with four children and eight grandchildren. The polio did not stop me from living my life,” he said.
‘Vaa’
For 60-year-old social worker Anne Lasimbang, it was her grandmother’s spirituality and knowledge of traditional medicine that saved her from polio — a word then unknown to the Kadazandusun who called the sickness vaa.
The year was 1965 and Lasimbang remembers playing in her village of Kampung Nampasan, Penampang by the Babagon river, like all the other kids.
One day, she had a fever, which was swiftly followed by pain in her legs that left her bedridden for a few days.
“It was not a big deal. We just thought I was sick. But I felt a lot of pain in my leg and I couldn’t get up. I complained to my mum, I told her I couldn’t walk, and she let me stay in bed. We didn’t go to hospital because she was busy with my other siblings — I have 12 brothers and sisters — and it was a bit of a journey then,” she told Malay Mail.
After a few days, her grandmother who happened to be a bobohizan – a Kadazandusun high priestess who functions as a spiritual leader as well as herbalist — visited and saw Lasimbang sick in bed and decided to use her powers to call for supernatural help.
Her grandmother had her komburongoh with her, the sacred object all bobohizans rely on for prayers and powers, and started to chant.
“She closed her eyes, chanted some prayers, whispering while holding my leg... and then when it was over, she called my mum in and she told her in Kadazan that I had polio. She even used the Kadazan word for polio, vaa,” said Lasimbang.
She explained that the crippling disease was not unknown to her community back then. An older neighbour had contracted the virus as a child but survived with a limp and managed to move around with crutches.
The village children were told never to tease the man about it.
“My mother was shocked but my grandma said there was an herbal remedy for this, but she had to look for it as soon as possible. It was crucial that I be treated soon. Also, my mum was pregnant so she had to ask her two sisters to go into the forest to look for these herbs — some kind of bamboo shoot which pointed upwards and what they called an ‘owl bed’.”
The herbs were gathered, mashed into a paste and applied to Lasimbang’s legs every day until her pain subsided.
“All I can remember now is that it was itchy, but one day I could just get up and walk a few steps. Over the next few days, I could walk around and play a bit, but my legs were not strong. Eventually though, it went back to normal and I could run,” she said.
Lasimbang and her family never got properly diagnosed by a doctor as in those days, relying on the local healer, the bobohizan, was commonplace.
“I’m sure if I were to continue being ill my parents would’ve taken me to hospital, but because of my grandmother, and because I recovered, I guess it was not necessary. But we trusted her, of course, everyone did. I’m not sure about polio, but she’s treated broken bones and other illnesses before,” she said.
Lasimbang said that after growing up and being educated on the symptoms of polio, she is more convinced now that she contracted it as a child.
The mother of two who now runs PACOS Trust, a non-governmental organisation specialising in native affairs, said she fully recovered from the incident and has no lasting symptoms of polio.
She has gone on to live an active life, participating in walkathons, and even marathons.
“I’m so grateful at how it turned out. My life has not been affected, but if we had waited any longer, I don’t think I could’ve recovered,” she said.
Lasimbang said that despite her respect for and belief in traditional medicine, she is a firm believer in vaccines.
She also said she was vaccinated when she entered primary school and made sure both her children received the required vaccination from polio and other childhood diseases when young.
