The Colorado 

Post-Polio Wellness Retreat

August 17-20, 2014–Rocky Mountain Village–Empire, Colorado

Fifty-three of us attended the Colorado Post-Polio Wellness Retreat from August 17-20, 2014 at Rocky Mountain Village in Empire, Colorado. This experiential holistic wellness program for people living with polio featured guest speakers and planned activities revolving around three major themes: the mind, the body and the spirit. We slept in the Easter Seals camp’s rustic cabins, shared communal bathrooms, ate meals together in the large dining hall and joyfully participated in program sessions that ranged from aerobic exercise to zip lining. Yes…zip lining! We went on bird and wildflower hikes, and a recreational train ride through the mountains. We enjoyed a reflexology treatment, learned about post-polio syndrome, and heard about mindful meditation. Then we tie-dyed t-shirts. And that’s just a sampling of the rich program agenda. The entire retreat cost was $300.00 plus transportation. 

It wasn’t the stunning mountain vistas 9,000 feet up, or the warm 90-degree swimming pool sparkling with joyful sunlight.  It wasn’t the cheery summer wildflowers popping up beside the woodland paths or the rushing waterfalls that met us as we wandered in and out of the nearby forests. 

Nope.  It was the people.  And it was the polio. Somehow we had found each other and became freshly entwined. We, with our partially paralyzed post-polio bodies, made friends quickly, as if we had known each other since childhood…

Read my entire article, “The Colorado Post-Polio Wellness Retreat: Grasping Sweet Thorns in the Rockies,” later on this blog!

P.S.  If you have never been to a post-polio wellness retreat, you may want to consider signing up! They are filled with fresh air, fellowship and lots of educational and recreational activities. The next post-polio wellness retreats will be held on the shores of Lake Superior in Big Bay, Michigan in September 2015 and then high in the mountains in Empire, Colorado in August 2016. Connect to Post-Polio Health International’s website for updates: http://post-polio.org/