Think 8 hours daily with CPAP is tough?

NC woman who spent 61 years in iron lung dies
By ERIN GARTNER – 35 minutes ago

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A woman who spent 61 years in an iron lung yet graduated from college and wrote a book about her life has died at her North Carolina home.

A close friend said Tuesday that 71-year-old Martha Mason died early Monday in Lattimore. She was 71.

Mary Dalton, an associate communications professor at Wake Forest University, produced a documentary about Mason's life in 2006.

Dalton said polio left Mason paralyzed from the neck down in 1948, yet she graduated first in her class from Wake Forest in 1960. She studied English and was well-versed in politics and literature, but it wasn't until 1994 that a voice-recognition computer allowed her to write about her life. Her book, "Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung," was published in 2003.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... wD980C30G0

rested gal wrote:Ten years old. A little girl just ten years old.

Encased in an iron lung every day, every week, every month, every year. From age 10 to age 71.

I can't imagine....