It's hard to imagine a more positive lady than she

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/28/iron.lung.death.ap/index.html

(excerpt)

Woman dies after life spent in iron lung

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) -- For almost 60 years, Dianne Odell lived inside a 7-foot-long metal tube, unable to breathe outside it but determined not to let it destroy her spirit.

From her 750-pound iron lung, she got a high school diploma, took college courses and wrote a children's book about a "wishing star" named Blinky.

"I've had a very good life, filled with love and family and faith," she said in 1994. "You can make life good, or you can make it bad."

Odell, 61, died Wednesday when a power failure shut off electricity to the tube and stopped the pump drawing air into her lungs.

Family members were unable to get an emergency generator working after a power failure knocked out electricity to the Odell family's residence near Jackson, about 80 miles northeast of Memphis, brother-in-law Will Beyer said.

"We did everything we could do, but we couldn't keep her breathing," Beyer said. "Dianne had gotten a lot weaker over the past several months, and she just didn't have the strength to keep going."

Odell, who contracted polio when she was 3 years old, lived with her parents, Freeman and Geneva Odell, and their house was equipped with an emergency generator designed to fire up immediately in a power failure.

"But for some reason, it didn't come on," Beyer said.

Family members even tried an emergency hand pump attached to the iron lung. "Everyone knew what we were supposed to be doing," Beyer said. "It just wasn't working."

Capt. Jerry Elston of the Madison County Sheriff's Department said emergency crews could do little to help. The local power company reported spotty power outages in the area because of storms.

Odell was afflicted with "bulbo-spinal" polio three years before a polio vaccine was discovered and largely stopped the spread of the crippling childhood disease.

Her care was provided by her parents, other family members and aides provided by a nonprofit foundation.

"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.

Odell accepted her life with grace, McMeen said.

"Everyone she encountered came to her because they cared about her," he said, "so she grew up in her 61 years thinking every person is good."

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To those of you of the younger generation remember that this is one reason that people fought to have immunization innoculations against illness. Those of my age grew up seeing black and white films of thousands of people who were stricken as toddlers with polio and forced to spend their entire lives in a lung machine lying on their back. In the article you can see a picture and read some of the history. So those of you who think that innoculations are some sort of insane conspiracy or the "cause" of illnesses, take a look at this lady and remember that this was common not so long ago before an immunization was developed.