What Are the Odds

One in ten million
Those were the odds,
So he must have done something
To piss off the gods.

In ’79,
A new daughter is born
Upon her he dotes,
With attention adorn.

Shortly thereafter,
His hand makes him yelp,
And it’s off to the doctor
To garner some help.

A doctor repairs,
With his surgical skills,
The hand that’s in need
And cures the hand’s ills.

Then daddy is free
To attend to his child,
He’s back changing diapers
Of the child beguiled.

But she’d recently had
A childhood shot,
And a virus that’s live
Was shot into the tot.

And against every odd
They believe what occurred,
Was the virus got dad
Through the suture endured.
 
A crippling disease
Soon infected the man,
And polio’s found
When his blood they would scan.

Confined to a chair,
Paralyzed in effect,
For thirty years hence
He can’t stand erect.

Lederle Labs
Was sued for redress,
No warning they’d issued,
The knowledge suppressed.

Thirty years through the courts
The matter unfurled,
Setbacks and progress -
The pendulum twirled.

But a state supreme court,
A verdict has reached,
And Lederle pays
For liability breached.

Now sixty-one years,
Thirty spent in a chair,
Twenty-two million
The court deems as fair.

One in ten million,
The odds that they state -
Odds overtaken
That altered his fate.