Five years after Christopher Reeves passed away
Spinal cord injuries were the non-existent medical problems that doctors and hospitals could ignore. No one knew about these types of injuries and many times the victim didn’t live very long to make much of a difference. As medical improved the injured lived longer, but little was done to improve their lives or to work toward a cure to the problem of paralysis. Then Christopher Reeves was injured during a cricket match and fell off his horse. The injury damaged his neck and spinal cord, making him a quadriplegic. While this was a tragedy to Mr. Reeves and his family and fans, for the disabled community he was the person they were waiting for. A famous person who wanted to do something about spinal cord injuries was now working in our corner. No longer are the disabled to be brushed under the rug or ignored. Christopher and his wife Dana worked tirelessly for the disabled and for research to find a cure for spinal cord damage. Unfortunately, we lost Mr. Reeves at age 52 five years ago this week. It was a blow to the people that were getting help from the new procedures he helped to push forward, and to those that hoped to see him walk one day. Then a year and a half later his wife Dana died from lung cancer. Everyone wondered if the Christopher Reeves foundation would continue to exist and help the disabled or just fade away. We are happy to say that the foundation is alive and well funneling money into research that may one day turn into medical procedures that could help the disabled to walk and use their arms again.
Before my injury three years ago I didn’t really think about the disabled until Christopher Reeves came on the scene. He forced everyone to think about the disabled and how to help all these people in nursing home and wheelchairs. Families were suffering trying to keep their injured family member healthy and to get medical care for them. Rehab is very expensive and most times Medicare will not pay for any of it. Without trying to get better there is no way that any of us that have spinal cord injuries will ever be able to get back to work or have a normal life. Medical care is more than money, but the disabled appear to be little more than cannon fodder for the pharmaceutical companies to ignore and forget about. It is hoped that the changes to the medical system going through congress will help the disabled in this country. No one wants to spend their life in a nursing home, but without money there are few famlies that can take care of their disabled member. It usually means that a spouse has to quit their job and now even less money is coming into the home. So we now ask these people to live at or below the poverty line and then refuse to give them their medications when the pharmacy bills go over $2700 a year. These people all had lives and jobs before they were injured and deserve better care than we are providing now.
The Christopher Reeves Foundation is a beacon that we can all work to help but we have to do some work on our own. If we don’t let our congress know what is needed in Medicare to deal with someone that is disabled, it will never be fixed. Medicare does not finance any research so we need to get others to help us on that front. There are some researchers that are making progress, but it slow and the money isn’t what we need because of the Great Recession we are all experiencing. It is impossible to expect those out there to donate to causes like the disabled when those same people cannot put food on the table. With the newly graduated experiencing a 19% unemployment rate, we can expect research and rehab help to slow to a halt. That means that the government needs to pick up the baton and help to continue the research that millions need. As Americans get older more and more will be forced into a wheelchair and be paralyzed. They will expect that their doctors will have procedures that will get them back to doing what they used to do but will run into a brick wall of despair. The baby boomers that helped make this country great will find out that they are turning into the forgotten members of society that have to live by practically starving to death and only have access to the oldest medications on the market.
Perhaps the baby boomers as a group will come together as the disabled groups never did and force government and companies to finance repars to spinal cord injuries. Only when voting blocks start demanding action will we start to see changes in Medicare and rehab that will help us all. Until then, we tip our hat to Christopher Reeves and what he did for all of us after his fateful injury all those years ago.
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