(ed. note - I hope you'll excuse that I've added a bit here to clarify...)

I've decided not to rail on Reeve. It's just not nice. Let me just summarize my opinion with two facts...

1 - The documentary showed Chris receiving fairly standard therapy. What it did not show is that he has flown all over the world engaging in cutting-edge and experimental procedures. It's hard to tell how much of his "recovery" can be attributed to his admittedly very hard work or to these procedures.

2 - His nerves are severed in some cases and literally destroyed in others. He hasn't "fixed" damaged nerves. He has just retrained ones that were damaged to the point where they forget what they were supposed to do. Unfortunately, the majority of his "connections" have been destroyed to the point where he can't train them. That's why the brain scan bit was so important - his brain hasn't adapted other portions to control the movement. The correct areas are moving the correct parts. The only way that he'll be able to recover significant movement is through "rebuilding" his nerves which is where the stem cells come in. He seems to think that that's just around the corner. Good for him. It's not. It's not even on the map.

I guess my biggest problem with Reeve is that he's the most prominent disabled person in history. Well, FDR was more prominent but never open regarding his disability. Instead of helping society accept disability and instead of learning to live with disability Chris is going to fight it every step of the way regardless of the true possibilities. For most of "us" there are truly no possibilities but many people look up to Reeve and, in my opinion, that gives a lot of false hope. We need to learn to accept our situations and not dwell. I know that this fight is what keeps him going. I know that he thinks he can win. Good for him. My situation is much different. My disability isn't nearly as debilitating as his and I've never known anything different. That said, my quality of life is pretty damn good. I don't dwell on what I can't do. He does. I like to say that while my disability may describe me, it will never define me.

Like I said, that doesn't sound nice and it's significantly toned down from what I was thinking last night. Certain phrases he uses on a regular basis (in every interview) make me crazy.

It was very nice to see him doing better, though. When I met him in Atlanta in 1996 he really was in bad shape.