Against All The Odds

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In the two years since, Reeve and McDonald have coaxed still more from his slowly stirring nervous system. Working in McDonald's lab and with private therapists, Reeve spends at least three hours a week on an FES bicycle, receives similar muscle stimulation on parts of his upper body and spends long stretches in the pool. He can now move most of his joints underwater and has sensation on 65% to 70% of his body.

Indeed, Reeve's entire spinal-injury classification has been upgraded. The American Spinal Injury Association (asia) ranks patients on a five-level scale from A, which is virtually no sensation or motion, to E, which is normal. "Chris was an ASIA A before," says McDonald. "He's now an ASIA C."

How did that happen? Until recently, accepted wisdom was that spinal tissue can never regrow, but that's being rethought. McDonald has conducted studies with spine-injured rats in which some of the animals are given no therapy after injury and others are given exercise. When their cords are later examined, the stimulated animals show new cell growth at the site of the lesion. "We believe," says McDonald, "that we can induce selective and robust cell growth."

Even if new cells aren't growing, therapy may help the spine make the most of the ones it has. "There may be intact neurons in [Reeve's] cord being reactivated," says Reggie Edgerton, a neurobiologist at the University of California at Los Angeles who has worked with Reeve as well.

It's these possibilities that have so galvanized other patients and so overwhelmed the communications office at Washington University. To cope with the load, the school has established a hot line (314-454-8633) and a website spine.wustl.edu), answering such questions as whether full recovery can occur through activity-based therapy (too early to say) and whether insurance will pay for the treatment (depends on the policy). What's important to remember, doctors caution, is that every case of paralysis is different. "This is a single case study that does not demonstrate cause and effect," warns W. Dalton Dietrich, scientific director of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, a research group that does work similar to that of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

Even Dietrich admits, however, that Reeve's progress is encouraging. Reeve wants more. "I think back to a role I played in the movie Deathtrap," he says. "My character was an ambitious playwright, and when he's asked what he wants, he says, 'I want a shortcut — and I don't care whose property it cuts through.'" Offscreen, Reeve goes for his goals with the same ambition — and he's still willing to explore unmarked trails to get there.