Harley Flathers

How Mayo Clinic Touches Me

"That 1949 July the 12th when I awakened to go out and do more cultivating of my soybeans, I was filled with pain all up and down my spine and legs. I kept working because it had to get done. Then we saw the family doctor in the evening. He told us, 'I think you have polio.'

My legs became paralyzed that night and totally gone from the waist down for, ah, over 30 days before there was any movement. It was a disease that was always going to go to someone else but it hit me.

Well, when I think of the Mayo Clinic, it has certainly changed my life in a lot of ways. They have kept me going in various procedures that made life worth living.

Mayo has done so much for us as they have for so many people. If your health problems can't be solved here, I don't know why you could get results anywhere else, where you would go. Mayo has got to be in my mind, our minds the number one place.

I think it's important to give back. We've been blessed with good health through the Mayo Clinic and we need to give back. And there's a wonderful feeling you get when you know that you have given something to Mayo Clinic and you've done it from the heart as well as the pocketbook."