Evelyn Wainwright is ‘in terrible pain’ if she gets cold
If Evelyn Wainwright, who contracted polio as a child in the late 1940s, gets cold she is “in terrible pain”. She “can’t get heated up” for long periods as she attempts to get her circulation going.
Speaking from her home in Togher, Cork City, the widow tells how she contracted polio after a day out in Youghal. “I have a powered wheelchair that I can’t do without. I am lucky if I am able to walk as far as my car, which is only 10 steps. I don’t have pain and I don’t have the fatigue , but I lost my husband three years ago, so for the first time, after 54 years married, I am living alone and finding it very difficult to cope with the cost of living.”Her biggest expense is heating, which she keeps switched on most summers until about July. She had an electricity and gas bill earlier this year of €1,100.