In times of uncertainty and pessimism, like we’re going through now, everyone needs to meet someone like JoAnne Brooks (not that there are many like her!) Despite the fact that polio robbed her of the use of her arms and right hand at a very early age, Brooks has always had a “can-do” attitude and a restless energy that helped her overcome numerous obstacles and accomplish many impressive feats without a trace of self-consciousness or self-pity. Her latest venture, making very attractive custom jewelry, would be impressive enough if she had full use of her arms and hands. The amazing truth is that JoAnne Brooks puts her jewelry together with her feet and the fingers of her left hand!

JoAnne was just four years old, the oldest of three girls in her Dallas-area family, when she became one of the last Americans (in 1962) to be afflicted with polio. She remembers a stinging and tingling sensation traveling from her right hand up her arm and then down her left arm, as though her arms and gone to sleep. Years of hospital visits, tests, doctors and traveling as far as California for answers, she ended up at Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (now known as TIRR Memorial Hermann), a pioneering rehabilitation center in Houston, where she remembers, “I was the healthiest person there, and I thought it was great being away from home and not to have to go to regular school.”

Her parents took the situation much more seriously. “It was much more devastating to my parents than to me. They felt guilty, helpless and frustrated, which caused them to become very over-protective.” My sisters were affected too, because all the attention was focused on me.”

JoAnne wasn’t the kind to quietly accept her fate. “I was always breaking the rules. I thought I could do anything.” She recalls attending skating parties (“I HAD to go!”) where her mother would run around behind her, holding on so JoAnne wouldn’t fall. When she wa ...

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