April Meeting
April 1, 2006
The Bay Area Support Group Meetings just keep getting better and better. At first I was kinda worried because there were only three of us there at 10:30. I guess everyone was waiting out in the parking lot, trying to fool me for April Fools Day. In the next ten minutes we had about twenty members, they just kept coming in. It was great!
Before I get started, I want to thank Margaret Yancey for taking the minutes and Kay Goss for being my right hand lady, wouldn’t have been a meeting if not for ya’ll help.
We started the meeting introducing two more new members; they are Velma Contreras and Anne Lindsey. Velma contracted Polio at age 2 and was one of the first patients at the newly built Texas Children’s Hospital. Like so many pps survivors she is trying to receive a disability. She is a hair dresser and had three working salons before cutting back on the amount of hours that she could work. Anne got Polio in 1954, as she recalls just a couple of months before the Polio vaccine came out in 1955. She was a lab technician for a Houston hospital. We welcome them and hope to see them every month.
Virginia started with a sad announcement about one of our regular member who passed away. She is Shelly Black and she was loved by all and will be missed. Virginia also announced that she had a scooter and two batteries free for the taking. They were both quickly asked for.
John read some new stories about a couple of senior scrams that seems to be going around Houston, Just want everyone to be on the careful side. John also gave out some parking notices to those who wanted to have something to let people know that their parked in a handicap zone. He also passed out Kroger Cards and spoke on the revenue we receive from them.
We asked the new members to tell us a little something about themselves and that got the rest of us talking about ourselves. We soon have a good open forum covering the difficulties that we all go through. We had our regular couples and some new couples there; I mention this because I feel that without support from our spouses most of us couldn’t survive.
Mike Goss asked if anyone knew of a good Polio Dr. in the bay area besides TIRR. I think we answered his question to his satisfaction. (That’s what a support group is for)
Discussion was had about a speaker for next month and John will try and get someone to speak on Sleep Disorders. This caused a discussion on a couple of members sleep mattresses, Select Comfort vs. Tempurpedic.
Everyone was once again reminded about the Texas Bay Area Survivors website @ www.texasbayareapolio.org look at it! Comment on it! Give us your suggestions, it your website.
Our next support group meeting will be on May 6th 2006, like I always say “you might have missed this one, but you don’t want to miss the next one”
John Hartman Co-Leader