Final answer:
The quotation is from Peg Kehret's memoir Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, which details her struggle with polio in an era before vaccines were available.
Step-by-step explanation:
The direct quotation you've provided is from Peg Kehret's book titled Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio. This memoir recounts her personal experience with polio and her journey through illness and recovery. At the time when polio vaccines were not yet available, polio posed a significant threat, and the development of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was crucial in combating the disease. The mass immunization campaigns in the 1950s using the killed vaccine and the 1960s using the live vaccine led to the near eradication of this crippling disease. Fortunately, today polio is rare in the United States thanks to the success of these vaccination efforts.