Diane Odell is a Tennessee woman who lived in an iron lung for nearly sixty years. If you do not know what an iron lung is, it is a large metal machine that encloses all of a person’s body except for the head. An iron lung regulates the way the person’s lungs inhale and exhale by using air pressure and regulation technology. Because the iron lung encapsulates just about a person’s whole body, Diane Odell and other people in the same situation that she was in, are immobilized. Diane Odell needed the iron lung to keep on breathing, and thus she needed this machine in order to keep living.<--more-->
Diane Odell died today (May 28, 2008) because there was a power failure in the town that she lived in, and her family could not get their backup generator to start up. It is truly a sad situation, and my heart does go out to her and her family. However, let us take a look, a small glimpse, into what it would be like to live in an iron lung.
Immobilized in an Iron Lung
The iron lung is another name for a respirator. The size of the respirator that Diane Odell used was seven feet long and it weighed seven hundred and fifty pounds. The most common reason, that I have read of, why people need an iron lung is because of being stricken with polio. This is the reason that Diane Odell needed this machine. Odell was stricken with polio at the age of three years old. Diane had gotten polio just three years prior to the discovery of the polio vaccination. Just imagine what it would be like to live enclosed in an iron lung for sixty years…
Well, Diane Odell, as well as many others managed to live and go on with their lives. I will never even begin to understand the kind of will power and endurance that it takes to go on with life. The courage and strength that polio survivors, including Diane Odell, is truly something to be admired.
Celebrate the Life of Diane Odell
Even though Diane Odell spent the majority of her life immobilized in an iron lung, she had a full life, and what she did with it indicates that she lived life to the fullest extent possible. It was reported that Diane Odell still found the time and strength to get her high school diploma, take classes in college, and author a book.
For those of us that have a measure of healthiness, let us celebrate the life of Diane Odell, the woman who survived polio and conquered life in an iron lung, by living our life to the fullest. There come times in our life when we feel down, but we should always never take for granted the health of our self and of our families.
So, with Diane Odell in mind, let us cease the day!
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