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HOPE
FOR A CURE
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"It used to be there was a breakthrough every
six months -Now there's one about every six weeks, and
it's wonderful."
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CR:
When I was injured in 1995, I was given a spinal cord manual.
It tells you about spinal cord injury and all the side effects
and the problems that go along with it. And most evenings
when I wanted to watch Monday Night Football, my nurse Patty
made me read the manual, and it's really quite horrific. You're
dealing with bladder and bowels and regulating them and literally
teaching your body how to behave with this problem and all
the things that can happen: collapsed lung, pneumonia, blood
clots, etc, all of which I've suffered from anyway. The rehab
basically was in order to prepare you to sit in a wheelchair.
And now, we're at the stage where leaders in the field like
Reggie Edgerton at UCLA, have discovered that exercise is
absolutely essential. They're making discoveries so quickly
now it's unbelievable. It used to be there was a breakthrough
every six months and now there's a breakthrough about every
six weeks, and it's wonderful.
AA:
How do you know what's false hope and what's real hope?
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| Reeve
in recovery. |
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CR:
I have the privilege of talking to the best minds on the problem
around the world. As chairman of a paralysis foundation, we
finance the best work in the world, so I can e-mail or call
up one of the guys and say "what's happening?"
AA:
There are three areas that are being worked on. One is to
limit the damage right after an accident, and secondly, to
work on those cells that are left intact and help them function,
and then to regenerate those that have been severed. Do I
have it right?
CR:
That's 3 out of 4 and the fourth is remyelenation. I have
nerves that are still intact, but are not functioning because
they are demyelenated. But they're still there, and if they
could be remyelenated, they would work again. You need only
10% of the nerves in the cord to be intact to get function,
up to and including walking. (For more on this research, see
Born Again Nerves)
AA:
That much function, huh? With only 10% CR: Yeah. Because there's
literally millions of nerves, and so 10% of millions works
out pretty well.
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Photo:Andrew
Woods
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