After a blazing hot July day at the beach, the lively four-year old awoke at three o’clock in the morning thirsting for a cold glass of water. She silently slid out of her bed, made her way through the familiar hallway nearby, then gazed down the long-darkened staircase to the landing below. Knowing that the steps would take her to the kitchen downstairs, she began her sleepy descent. Carefully tiptoeing, she touched one foot onto the shadowed first step. Suddenly, it happened!  She buckled.  Down she bumped, rolled and tumbled, calling out to Mom and Dad in fear and pain, “my legs don’t work!”

Thank God Sunny didn’t die.

Her panic-stricken cries that night in 1952 foreshadowed the doctor’s ominous news: polio was about to either permanently destroy many of her muscles or it was about to kill her completely. If her 4-year old body could survive the high fever for the next 10 days, her legs would be forever paralyzed. If not, she would die. Through all the prayers, waiting, wondering, the hospital nurse finally declared that she was “out of the woods.” Sunny Roller would live! And we are all better off because of it. As an adult, Sunny remains paralyzed from the waist down and uses a three-wheeled electric scooter to get around. She also struggles with new pain, weakness and fatigue, known as the late effects of polio.  But her spirit is alive and well.  She focuses on the positive and has figured out how to make life work with her disability, not in spite of it. She loves to help other people.

What does Sunny do?

At the age of 14, Sunny, using crutches and wearing long metal leg braces to get around, consciously decided that wherever she went in her life ahead she would:

• Become a positive force for good
• Work very hard, and
• Contribute directly to the wellbeing and success of others

Sunny loves to help people. Always has. During the past 15 years, with her severe physical disability, she has been busy.

• She started a thriving senior ministry program at her church to help alleviate the isolation and loneliness so many elders face. And as a Stephen Minister, counseled individuals struggling with life crises such as unemployment, cancer, or the death of a loved one.

• She is teaching groups of people with spinal cord injuries how to take back their lives and live stronger, happier lives–with their injury.
• She created a blog filled with personal stories at https://www.sunnyrollerblog.com// to inspire folks who are growing older to “live well and live it up!”
• Sunny regularly drives 500 miles north to Lake Superior to lead a week-long Post-Polio Wellness Retreat that she co-founded 12 years ago for polio survivors.
• She also drives to help facilitate the local post-polio support group she also co-founded.

• At Christmas, Sunny drives all around the area delivering her festive original flower arrangements to cheer friends and shut-ins offering them a little extra Christmas Spirit.
• At Easter, she makes surprise deliveries of homemade cupcakes to spread a message of kindness and spiritual renewal.

What else has Sunny done?

As a young girl growing up with paralysis, she endured five orthopedic surgeries, nine months in a rehabilitation hospital and years of physical therapy coming back from polio’s onslaught. Through these hard-earned experiences she learned to set goals and go after them. She went to public schools and did well. When she was a teenager, with the help of her minister, Sunny made her choice to be an encouragement to others. In high school she was elected as a class officer and was very active in her church youth group, doing missionary work in northern Michigan every summer. She graduated and went on to earn a teaching degree at Central Michigan University (CMU). She moved to Chesaning, Michigan in 1969 to live independently and teach high school English for 10 years. There she developed a popular class for seniors preparing for college English. She loved teaching and enjoys reconnecting with former students who are now old enough to be grandparents.

In the late 1970s she returned to CMU to work her way through graduate school. She became a Residence Hall Director and earned a master’s degree in counseling. As a Hall Director she had the opportunity to directly influence many young college undergraduates as a positive role model. Her crutches, braces and mobility limitations didn’t stop her from leading and joining these bright, aspiring college students at dances or candlelight breakfasts; in dorm planning meetings or heart to heart counseling sessions.  

How did the Late Effects of Polio affect Sunny?

During this time at CMU, in the early 1980s, she developed what is now called The Late Effects of Polio. At the time, physicians had no idea why polio survivors all over the country were unexpectedly developing new disabling pain, weakness and fatigue.

After receiving five erroneous diagnoses herself, she ended up getting the medical help she needed at the University of Michigan (U-M). That’s when she learned to use a scooter instead of braces and crutches to go long distances. Then she needed a wheelchair accessible van. It was at U-M that she decided to take up a new mission. She started what was to become her second career and joined forces with her physician to help with research and education about polio’s late effects. Together, they traveled across America and overseas to help alleviate some of the desperation and suffering polio survivors were experiencing simply due to lack of clinical care information about the onslaught of the new symptoms.

Her work to address the ongoing needs of polio survivors has spanned three decades. She currently presents to groups as an invited speaker and volunteers on the Board of Directors of Post-Polio Health International (PHI), an organization serving polio survivors worldwide. See http://www.post-polio.org/