Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve (16 page)

tionary bicycle hooked up to a pair of shorts wired with electrodes. Once Chris, wearing the shorts with the electrodes attached to his thighs, quads, and calf muscles, was placed on the Regis Cycle, a 50-volt electric current would stimulate the muscles. Those mus- cles, in turn, would push the pedals. This $100,000 bike, along with a similar device called the StimMaster ($30,000) that could also be used to work the arms and stomach muscles, enabled Chris to maintain a surprising degree of muscle tone.

Chris then spent more time doing more neck exercises, shoulder shrugs, and chin tucks—a minimum of fifty repetitions each. Then came a full hour of occupational therapy—learning, for example, the finer points of his Quickie model wheelchair and a similar sip-and-puff control panel that operated his lights, fan, and television. He learned how to coordinate his speech with the respirator, so that he could start his sentence on the outward breath and continue at least a word or two of the next thought so that the listener understood that he was not yet finished. Chris also learned about the voice-activated telephone and computer that would eventually be installed at his home.

After he went through the daily routine of being “coughed”— having a nurse use a vacuumlike coughalator to suction the mu- cus that built up in his throat and lungs—Chris would be visited in the afternoon by a respiratory therapist. They would spend the next hour or more working on Chris’s breathing exercises. To measure his capacity, the trach tube was closed off and Chris was left to take in as much air as he could on his own and then breathe it out. To be weaned off the ventilator, Chris would have to take in over l,000 cc’s of air. Even after months of training at

Kessler, he could only manage to pull in 75 cc’s of air on his own—roughly the lung capacity of a canary.

Dana watched as her husband struggled for every breath, and saw the frustration on his face when he failed to make signifi- cant progress. “It takes time, honey,” she reassured him. “You’ll get there. You’ll get there.” Chris had begun calling Dr. Sipski “Coach,” but it was a moniker that might better have been ap- plied to Dana. Always at his elbow offering hugs, laughter, and words of encouragement, she made a vow “not to let Chris get depressed. He’s incredibly positive,” she said, “and not a defeatist by any means. But there are times when we all feel that we’ve just had it, you know? Sometimes you’ve got to be reminded that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

Dana got some help in this endeavor from Kessler’s director of psychology Dr. Craig Alexander, who met with Chris frequently to help him deal with the ever-present emotional hurdles. But nothing lifted his spirits more than the few minutes he spent each day practically standing on his own two feet. Chris would be placed flat on his back on a tilt table and strapped in securely be- fore one of the ends was gradually cranked up. The first few times he was brought to a near-upright position, Chris’s blood pressure plummeted and he passed out. But after several practice runs, he was able to be brought up to an eighty-degree angle—for all in- tents and purposes as if he were standing on his own legs.

Even though she was on hand during these initial attempts us- ing the tilt table, Dana was moved by the sight of all six-feet-four inches of Chris “standing.” The first time she looked up at him, she began crying, and had to leave the room. Later, she got in the habit of standing on the footrests of the table alongside him,

and putting her head on his shoulder—“Just like the old days,” he told her.

No less a battle-hardened veteran of the spinal injury wars than Dr. Sipski also marveled at the sight. “I was used to looking down at him,” she said. “For the first time, I had to look up. He’s really tall and has these huge, piercing, blue eyes. He looked like what I was used to seeing in the movies.”

Soon, Dana brought Will in to see Daddy on the tilt table. The little boy walked in the door of the physical therapy gym and only managed a few steps before stopping. He gazed up at his fa- ther as if he were looking at the angel on top of a Christmas tree. “Wow!” he said. “You’re really
big
!” Then, with Dana cheering him on, Will ran up and hugged one of Daddy’s legs.

From that point on, whenever Chris was on the tilt table, Dana and Will climbed aboard and joined him in a group hug. Will, who had become used to clambering over his father’s wheelchair, now climbed all the way to the peak of the tilt table, pausing to enjoy the view from atop Daddy’s head.

By September, Chris, with no small amount of prodding from Dana, decided it was time to step back into the spotlight—if only to set the record straight about his so-called “death wish”—and to thank the 300,000 people who had written him letters of support. No one had been more persistent than Barbara Walters, who along with everyone else in television considered landing the first interview with Christopher Reeve to be the “get” of the year. Chris had known Barbara for a long time—she interviewed him when the first of his
Superman
films came out seventeen

years earlier—and the two were fond of each other. Dana, in particular, had always been in awe of Walters. She actually made the call to Barbara telling her of their decision to give her the interview. “I couldn’t believe it,” Walters said, “and of course we really had no idea of what to expect. But Dana was always so upbeat and positive. She made it very clear from the beginning that they were very enthusiastic about the interview—they wanted to let people know that Chris was all right.”

The Reeves’ prime-time interview with Walters on ABC’s
20/20
was taped at Kessler over a three-day period and aired on September 29, 1995. During the interview, Chris admitted for the first time that he had briefly considered ending it all (“I’d lie awake at night and think,
What’s going to become of me?”
) and described movingly how Dana’s love pulled him back from the brink.

“Oh, my God! There’s this commitment—true commitment,” he told Walters. “Dana and I were always in love, but I would say we’ve now transcended into something where our moments to- gether are even more valuable than they ever were.”

Reliving the accident and the grueling months that followed, Chris betrayed not the slightest hint of bitterness. And he spoke optimistically about his prospects for recovery, predicting that he would be walking again within the decade.

“You begin to see there is a future,” he said. “And that the love and support and friendship of family and friends and people around the world, as all these things came to me and I realized their value . . . Am I lucky. I am so lucky.”

As for his prospects of ever walking again: “I would like to stand up on my fiftieth birthday—that’s seven years from now,” he told Walters, “and raise a glass to everyone who helped me.”

The impact of the Reeves’ joint appearance on television— one of the year’s highest-rated broadcasts—was immediate. Overnight, Chris was being hailed as an inspiration not just for victims of spinal cord injuries but for disabled people everywhere. Not long after, he was interviewed by the
Today
show’s Katie Couric, who devoted an entire week to exploring the subject of spinal cord injuries.

It was clearly time, Dana believed, for Chris to rejoin the world. She reminded him that on October 17, the Creative Coalition that he helped found was having its annual fundraising dinner at New York’s Pierre Hotel. His close friend Robin Williams was being honored by the group that night for his Comic Relief concerts with Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal that had raised millions for the homeless.

“It would be wonderful if you could present that award to Robin yourself,” Dana told him. “Wouldn’t it be great to see your old friends? They’ll all be there.”

There were risks, to be sure. His body could go into violent spasms at any time. He might become detached from the vent and suddenly be gasping for breath, or suffer a bout of dysreflexia—a life-threatening condition brought about suddenly and silently by an obstructed urinary tract, bowel, or catheter. That obstruction can cause a sharp spike in blood pressure, leading in turn to a coro- nary or a stroke. What if, gripped by stage fright, he simply for- got how to speak while on the ventilator? What if the leg bag into which his urine emptied began leaking or simply broke?

Chris and Dana talked over each and every possible calamity, but in the end she convinced him that this was the perfect opportu- nity to show the world that he was back—and to publicly thank

his loyal friend in the process. “Besides,” Dana said, “Robin will be out there on the stage with you. So what have you got to worry about?”

“That’s precisely why I
am
worried,” Chris shot back.

Dana took charge once again, ordering a special van to take them into Manhattan, arranging for Juice and a Kessler nurse to come along, even rummaging through Chris’s closet in Bedford to find his favorite black tuxedo. Realizing that there would be a small army of reporters and photographers on hand to record Chris’s first public appearance since the accident, Dana also worked with Robin’s security people on a strategy to protect her husband. Rather than approach the Pierre through its main Fifth Avenue entrance, the Reeves’ van pulled up to the side entrance on East 61st Street. A special canopy had already been con- structed from the curb to the side door of the hotel. Within sec- onds of the Reeves’ arrival, guards taped over the van windows so no one could see in.

No one even got a glimpse of Chris or Dana as they were spir- ited out of the van, beneath the canopy, and into the hotel. After resting up briefly in the bedroom of an elegant nineteenth-floor suite, Chris and Dana were escorted into the living room.

A cheer went up from more than twenty friends who were there to greet them, including Barbara Walters, Susan Sarandon, Blythe Danner, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and his then-wife Donna Hanover, Blair Brown, Ron Silver, Carly Simon—and Robin and Marsha Williams. “The mascara,” said actress Stockard Channing, “will be runny tonight.”

But for the moment, Robin Williams was determined to lighten the mood. “Better be careful using that wheelchair in New

York,” Williams cracked, “panhandlers will offer to wash your wheels.” Dana burst into her trademark, full-throttle laugh and clapped, and Chris laughed with her. For the next half hour, he chatted amiably with everyone. “I never knew,” he told news- woman Linda Ellerbee, “how many potholes there were in New York until I went over them today. When you’re in a wheelchair that’s strapped in a van—let’s say it changes your perspective. That, and being stuck in a hospital for five months.”

“He was in great spirits,” marveled Ellerbee. And so was every- body else. “It’s like Christmas having Chris here,” Danner said. “He’s such a generous man.” Concurred Carly Simon: “He’s a bright light, a bright spirit. He reaches out to so many people. He’s got guts and stamina and soul and strength.”

No one realized that, beneath the amiable chitchat, Chris was worried about all the things that might go wrong. So were Dana, Juice, and the nurse who had forced him to read up on his condition, Patty. Working in concert, Dana distracted every- one with a story about Will’s latest antics while Patty deftly checked Chris’s vital signs without ever disturbing the flow of conversation.

An hour later, Chris was in the wings of the grand ballroom stage, waiting to be introduced by Susan Sarandon. Once he was announced and Juice wheeled him onstage, the seven hundred people who jammed the ballroom leaped to their feet and gave him a five-minute standing ovation.

Then Chris explained why he’d come. A former English teacher of his once told him “the only reason for nonattendance is quadruple amputation—and even then they can carry you in a basket.” So, Chris told the crowd, “I thought I’d better show up.”

Thrilled with the audience’s response, Chris went on to intro- duce Glenn “Juice” Miller (“He used to lead a band”) and then Dana. When he thanked her for saving him—“I owe her my life”—the crowd burst into sustained applause again. Pausing pe- riodically to catch his next breath from the ventilator, Chris ac- knowledged that he “never knew there was such love and support aimed in my direction. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” By the time Robin Williams took to the stage to receive his award from Chris, half the audience was weeping. Williams quickly put an end to that. He admitted that he visited Chris’s room in the guise of “a Russian proctologist—the results were good,” and then launched into a fifteen-minute routine with Chris as his straight man. Among other things, Robin suggested his friend enter a tractor pull, and volunteered to auction off

Chris’s snazzy new “tie”—his ventilator tube—for charity.

Then, eying his wheelchair, Robin praised his friend. “You’re on a roll, bro,” he said. “Literally.”

Back in his room at Kessler that night, Chris and Dana were giddy. The evening, which had seemed so terrifying at first, marked a new beginning—and not just for Chris. “People saw that Dana was the main reason Chris had gotten through this,” Dr. Kirshblum said. “More and more people were seeing what an exceptional woman she was.”

Using Dixie cups Dana had purloined from the nurses’ station, the Reeves toasted what she jokingly referred to as Chris’s “tri- umphant return to the stage” with white wine. “You loved it, didn’t you?” she teased. “All the attention—and the applause. I was watching you the whole time, Toph, and you just loved it.”

“You know me,” he replied wryly, “too well.”

From that night on, Chris and Dana began seriously planning Chris’s homecoming—and what he intended to do with the rest of his life. Before the accident, he had been set to direct a film. Even those who doubted that Chris would ever walk again, like Dr. Marcalee Sipski, believed that was possible. “I expect him to direct as many movies as he wants,” she said. “I don’t see any bar- riers in his way.”

Perhaps. But Chris wanted more. He was determined to walk again, and knew that the barriers yet to be overcome for that to ever happen were monumental. Dana had done everything she could to keep Chris from sinking into depression, including plas- tering the walls of his room at Kessler with notes and cards from countless well-wishers—as well as the NASA poster signed by every current astronaut. “This is what it’s going to take to make that happen, Toph,” she said, pointing to the poster. “Another ef- fort like the space program.”