07/03/2026
When 85-year-old Jesse “JT” looks back on his life, one truth stands out clearly: Shriners Children’s Lexington changed everything for him.
As a young child, JT was diagnosed with polio, a highly infectious disease that attacks the nervous system. Growing up in Rossville, Georgia, he and his family learned about Shriners Children's from an Alhambra Shriner who worked alongside JT’s father at a textile mill. When he was 8, JT boarded a train bound for Lexington for an evaluation to see if Shriners Children's could help with the muscular impact caused by the polio. In 1950, at the age of 10, he began what would become a 10-month stay at Shriners Children’s Lexington’s original facility – a 20-bed wing connected to the Children’s Ward of Good Samaritan Hospital.
Within a week of arriving, JT underwent surgery and woke to find his right leg in a cast stretching from his toes to his hip.
During recovery, JT’s days followed a rhythm: breakfast, school, lunch, rest and then dinner in the late afternoon. After dinner, JT played cards with the other patients in the wing and the second shift nurse, who he fondly remembers as the most giving person he ever met. JT said that the structure and routine at Shriners Children’s Lexington taught him discipline, something that stayed with him long after he returned home.
When he was finally discharged, the staff and patients threw him a farewell party.
🔗 Read JT's story: https://www.shrinerschildrens.org/en/news-and-media/patient-stories/2026/06/jt-bracing-care
