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Alan Alda, best known for playing surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce on M*A*S*H, was diagnosed with polio at age 7.
In an interview with AARP the Magazine, the actor recalled coming down with a stuffy nose one day, throwing up, and feeling unsteady in his legs. The next day, he had a stiff neck and could not sit up in bed.
He said he was hospitalized for two weeks and underwent six months of therapy, which involved having "nearly scalding" hot blankets wrapped around his limbs every hour.
"It was hard on me," he told the magazine. "It was harder, I think, on my parents, who couldn't afford a nurse and had to torture me themselves. It's always better to pay somebody to torture your kid."