Whenever you next complain about the tediousness of work and study, or the long walk home, or the lack of material pleasures in your life, remember Dianne Odell, who spent her entire life stationary within an iron lung, a 2m-long iron tube. She was afflicted with bulbo-spinal polio three years before a polio vaccine was discovered, and spent almost 60 years of her life confined within the iron lung, unable to breathe outside it but determined not to let it destroy her spirit.

Dianne recently passed away after a power failure cut electrical supply to her home, causing the breathing device to stop functioning. Family members were unable to get an emergency generator working, and even tried an emergency hand pump attached to the iron lung.

Dianne’s iron lung, similar to those used during the U.S. polio epidemics that peaked in the 1950s, was a cylindrical chamber with a seal at the neck. She lay on her back with only her head exposed and made eye contact with visitors through an angled mirror. She operated a television set with a small blow tube and wrote on a voice-activated computer.

Iron lungs were largely replaced by positive-pressure airway ventilators in the late 1950s that give users much more freedom of movement. But a spinal deformity from the polio kept Dianne from wearing a more modern portable breathing device.

“Dianne was one of the kindest and most considerate people you could meet. She was always concerned about others and their well-being,” said Frank McMeen, president of the West Tennessee Health Care Foundation, which helped raise money for equipment and nursing assistance for Odell. “Everyone she encountered came to her because they cared about her,” he continued, “so she grew up in her 61 years thinking every person is good.”

“I’ve had a very good life, filled with love and family and faith,” Dianne said in 1994. “You can make life good, or you can make it bad.”

I was saddened upon reading this article, and a song immediately came to my mind.

Give Thanks

Give thanks with a grateful heart;
Give thanks unto the Holy One;
Give thanks because He’s given Jesus Christ His Son.

Give thanks!

Give Thanks - midi

This song reminds us to always be grateful for all that we possess, for everything is but the gift of God to us. Our life, health, family, friends. Give thanks.

For the full story, read:
CNN.com: Woman dies after life spent in iron lung

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