Promote Regeneration of his spinal cord. “It’s a pretty big deal to me. It’s my chance to walk,” Schmeider said late last week in a telephone interview from Beijing. “My goal is to be walking in a year.”
Schmeider said he already is regaining his sense of touch in his legs and feet. He also has some sensations in his legs that he finds hard to describe. “It’s a tingling, burning feeling,” he said. “It’s not unpleasant. It’s very mild.” Schmeider was injured in August 2004 while painting his father’s house in Louisburg. His rented bucket lift tipped and catapulted him 45 feet. His twin brother, Garrett, found him minutes later.
Huang Hongyun, the American-trained neurosurgeon who performed the surgery, was cautious about how Schmeider would do. “It’s hard for me to predict how much Christopher can recover his body functions,” Huang said. It’s possible that he will be able to walk with braces after a certain period. But I can’t say exactly when because the rate of recovery is different with each individual case.”
Huang says he has operated on more than 300 patients from about 50 countries. He implants olfactory ensheathing Glial Cells, which are involved in the sense of smell. The olfactory nerve, which sends sensations of smell to the brain, continually regenerates throughout a person’s life. The cells Huang uses support the regeneration by wrapping around nerve fibers and enhancing their growth.
While other scientists have been able to replicate Huang’s results in animals, many have strong concerns about his work with paralyzed patients. So far, Huang hasn’t produced controlled studies that compare the recovery of patients who receives his treatment with those who don’t. And critics say that much of his evidence of improvement is based on anecdotes, rather than hard scientific measurements. Even so, there is now a two-year international waiting list of patients seeking Huang’s treatments.
While Schmeider was at the hospital, there were American patients from a half-dozen states, as well as those from Italy, Germany, the Philippines, and Mexico. Their expectations were heartening, Schmeider said. “I saw people getting more feeling, muscle control, things like that,” he said.
Schmeider was able to move to the top of the waiting list through the intervention of a David Landewee, a Kansas resident who underwent the procedure in March. Landewee suffered a spinal cord injury similar to Scmeider’s in an auto wreck 10 years ago.
(Continued Underneath For Sale in next column)
FOR SALE!!!!***
97 Mercury Sable LS; station wagon. Leather interior; 6-cylinder; 6-passenger seating; rear-facing third seat; Braun wc topper; Monarch hand controls. 93,000 miles. Price negotiable.
2001 Dodge Intrepid. 30,000 mi; leather interior; automatic transmission; Braun overhead wheelchair carrier & hand controls. Call Ruth at 239-9754 after 5 p.m. if interested in either car.
*2003 Ford F-250 lift-equipped green/gray van; leather seats, TV, DVD player. Playstation hookup, am-fm radio. Rick Miller, 937-2245. *Shower Chair; 2 yrs old, negotiable; 2 RoHo cushions; low profile; $150 each; Invacare 900 Action Power Chair; 4 yrs. Old; $600. Call 448-5296.
Cookbooks for Sale: Recipes compiled by Chapter members; $10:00. Call David @ 589-6620.
*Video tapes for sale. Various topics related to spinal cord injuries. Call David Allgood or Buddy Lawson.
***If assistance is needed to pay for any of the above items, contact Kentucky Assistive Technology Loan Corporation atfor information on loans at 5% interest to qualified candidates.
SURGERY, CONT’D
Since surgery in Beijing he has maintained a rigorous regimen of exercise and Physical Therapy. He has regained the use of some muscles in his hips and can now walk as far as 375 feet using leg braces and a walker. When Schmeider’s mother saw the article about Landewee in the paper, she contacted him. Schmeider and he became friends, and were accompanied by Schmeider to China for the surgery.
“I just think it’s going to work,” she said. “You have the surgery, you have the hope. It will work.”
