Article:
Reeve Smelling the Coffee Again, and More
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
CLEVELAND, The actor Christopher Reeve, who can
breathe on his own for 15-minute stretches after
experimental surgery to implant electrodes that stimulate
the muscles in his diaphragm, told reporters today that he
had just had a remarkable experience.
Breathing through his nose, instead of through the hole in
his throat required by his ventilator, Mr. Reeve was able
to identify various smells - an orange, a chocolate-chip
cookie, a mint and coffee - for the first time in the eight
years since a horseback riding accident left him paralyzed
from the neck down.
"I actually woke up and smelled the coffee," he told a news
conference at University Hospitals of Cleveland, where the
operation was performed on Feb. 28.
During another 15-minute session off the ventilator, he
said, he asked his support staff to turn off the machine so
he could enjoy the silence. That was when he heard the
sound of his own breathing.
"That meant a tremendous amount," he said.
While his
doctors say they hope he can wean himself permanently from
the respirator, Mr. Reeve still needs it for most of the
day, and he used it throughout today's news conference.
"This necktie I'm wearing is not my favorite," he said of
the tube hanging from the hole in his neck.
Two of his doctors, Anthony DiMarco and Raymond Onders, the
surgeon who performed the operation, told reporters that
its full effects would not be known for two to three
months. In that time, Mr. Reeve will undergo conditioning
exercises several times a day to retrain his atrophied
diaphragm.
Every time the electrodes stimulate his diaphragm to
contract, Reeve, 50, said, he feels a sensation like "a
mild little flick of the finger," which is not
uncomfortable.
Mr. Reeve plans to incorporate the exercises into his
overall physical-therapy regimen, which includes water
therapy and working out on a special bicycle. The program
has enabled him to wiggle his extremities, to sit up partly
by himself and, before he had the implant, to use his neck
muscles to breathe for short periods without a respirator.
But he will continue to need critical-care supervision 24
hours a day.
"It is an exciting moment but also one that has to be put
into perspective in terms of what rehabilitation really
is," he said. "It's a process. It takes discipline and it
takes time and it also takes a tremendous support system."
He continued, "No one knows when or even if this will be
successful," he continued. "But I'm a pretty determined
individual."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/national/14REEV.html?ex=1048646064&ei=1&en
=c3aedeec22fe96bf
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