50th Anniversary of the Polio vaccine: interview with and pictures of polio survivor Edna Hindson; photo gallery of the "iron lung" and polio resources on the internet.

Alt-Rocker / Lady Wrestler Reunion - Musician Neko Case discovers a long-lost relative while working on the documentary Lipstick & Dynamite: see the movie trailer, visit the Web site, explore the music of Neko Case.

Doing Time, Fighting Fires: While covering the disastrous mudslides in La Conchita, California, contributor Jim Sterngold meets two volunteer rescue workers from the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility. Read about his encounter with these extraordinary young ladies.

Supreme Short List: Over the last three weeks, Weekend America worked with experts to come up with a short list of new Supreme Court justices. What makes a good jurist? Help us pick the next Supreme Court justice. Take our survey...

Music Picks with Alan Light: We know you have questions about music featured on the program. This week, Alan Light of Tracks Magazine featured Hasidic reggae artist Matisyahu, Magnolia Electric Company and Martha Wainwright.

And, the FDA posted new health warnings about widely used painkillers like Bextra. How does this affect you? Are you currently taking these medications and do you live with unbearable physical pain? Weekend America wants to hear from you. Post your stories here on our blog; share them with Weekend America and our listeners.

I am a 33-year old first grade teacher suffering with severe chronic pain. I woke one morning, 2 years ago, with severe pain in both feet, most likely caused from inflammation, according to my doctors (I've seen them all). I had been a very fit, athletic, young women, enjoying dancing, backpacking, hiking, and mountain biking before my life was suddenly turned upside down by the intruder of chronic pain.
Chronic pain knows no boundaries of race, age, or gender, and it is invisible - though all chronic pain sufferers know the furrowed brow we get when we've yet to have a year, a day, a minute free from pain. It also serves no purpose in our bodies, as oftentimes the cause (injury, illness) has since gone, but the pain signals have forgotten to turn themselves off, so to speak. Having been so young and physically active, learning to cope with a total lifestyle change has been difficult. And when you compound the fear (chronic pain's twin) and disappointment we have when the drugs we take are deemed unsafe -- I took Celebrex, Bextra, and Vioxx- it's easy to see why finding an appropriate treatment program is so frustrating.

But that's what I did with the help of my pain management doctor. She manages the cocktail of drugs I take everyday that helped me get out of my wheelchair and go back to work. She also changed my life.

So many chronic pain sufferers know too well the experience with doctors and drugs is not always positive. Too often drugs don't work well, we can't tolerate the side effects, or, in the case of COX 2 inhibitors, they simply are unsafe. When treatments fail, we feel hopeless, our doctors may be frustrated or may even infer it's in our head and there is nothing they can do for us. My doctor was different. She is an anesthesiologist, and practices a very integrated approach to medicine, believing strongly in the mind-body connection to pain and healing. Her philosophy incorporates delving deep into the psychological and emotional sides to pain, and that healing our emotional state and improving our connections with our body, mind, as well as with people will help strengthen our body's ability to cope with pain, and hopefully allow it to heal. She practices methods used by the Program of the Stress Reduction Clinic at University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

When I first met my doctor this past November, she first insisted on seeing me 2 times a week, for a month. I'd never had a doctor take so much time with me - it was a relief. She started me on a prescription drug program of a non-COX2 anti-inflammatory called Volteran, narcotics, herbal supplements and a strict vitamin program. I had been on Bextra, and we decided together that the COX 2 drugs were not a good idea. I also had homework of reading the book, Full Catastrophe Living, by Jon Kabatt-Zinn; the most important book I've ever read. We worked together weekly for several months doing trauma resolution, and color visualizations in her office, as well as meditation, which I did everyday for 5 months. It was not an easy program to follow, especially when I have yet to have a pain free day. I thought at first the drugs would take away my pain, but that was not my path, and my doctor was not surprised when it didn't happen that way for me. There is so much emotional pain that comes with being a chronic pain sufferer, and sometimes that is the hardest part to tackle. What my therapy has done is help me cope with my pain, and basically my life. I learned to get a handle on the fear that comes with a life changing medical condition, and to learn to live life in the present - that was huge for me. The drugs I take 3 times a day are only a small part of the program, but it's the internal work that has really made a difference for me. It allowed me to think of my life as whole, even if it is completely different than my old life. I don't know that I will ever know life free from pain, and I may never do the things I used to, but I am still me, only better. I was given a window into the lives of people I never thought I'd be like. I am that person who looks perfectly fine, but needs accommodations, who can't stand in line, who can't go to the grocery store, but I have more compassion and tolerance than I ever could have had before. That has to be a good thing to bring to my sweet first graders everyday. Though it's a struggle everyday, I enjoy teaching more than I ever have before. I've slowed the doing part of my life, while accelerating the being part of my life, if that makes sense.

And this is what the pharmaceutics companies, insurance companies, as well as doctors, need to shift their focus to; improving the lives, not just the symptoms, of chronic pain sufferers. Alternative therapies should not be alternative in this country, but the norm. I would not be able to work or function without the help of drugs, but, without the emotional support and understanding, and remarkable therapy my doctor has provided for me, I never would have come to the place I am now.

For anyone who grew up in the 1950s, the term 'iron lung' brings with it a shudder. The thing looked like a steel boiler on its side with a helpless human inside, their head sticking out one end. To see around them, a mirror was put on a pivot directly above their head. As kids we were told that people stayed in this giant, hulking contraption for the rest of their lives. Some people were cured of polio--in fact my mother was one of them. But I recall watching 'Queen for a Day' where host Jack Daly would award one woman with oodles of goodies. Contestants would come on TV and get quizzed by Jack, the audience would applaud and the one with the most needy story would get it. Once, someone in an iron lung or with a relative in one, won. It freaked me out then and still does. My mother always walked with a limp from her experience with polio. Jonas Salk was a saint in our house.