It’s Polio.
my thots as well and don’t we vaccine for that?
It sounds like it. My father and my aunt (twins) had polio at age 2. My grandmother told me that my father complained that it “hurt to sit on the potty”. My grandmother had no idea what was wrong with the children, the third youngest of 9. When she took them to the store, later on, for new shoes, the shoe salesman noticed a difference in the sizes of their feet. The doctor diagnosed polio long after they were well, although both suffered long term effects that lasted the rest of their lives.
My father walked with a marked limp, and my aunt had her leg broken and stretched when she was in college. But, it was withered and much smaller in diameter.
I grew up in the 50s and the threat of polio was a horror for parents.
The telltale symptoms were flu-like and stiff neck.
I recall public swimming pools being closed in the summer when it was determined they were ‘hot spot’ for the disease.
Knew several kids that spent time in an ‘iron lung’.
This sure sounds like a strain of polio.