Nothing Is Impossible (3 page)

W
hen things are really bad, you have to laugh. We use humor to relieve tension and cope with many things in life that are whimsical and even absurd. Humor can camouflage jealousy, prejudice, and intolerance. It can bring people together by common reference, which was one of the reasons I enjoyed being an actor. My injury gave me firsthand knowledge that humor is also one of the best ways—if not
the
best way—to channel anger.

Visitors to my bedside at UVA later remarked that I appeared calm and even surprisingly peaceful so soon after a major catastrophe. Inside, though, I was angry down to my very core. I remember trying my hardest to seem relaxed for the sake of certain family members, particularly Will. He understood that I had broken my neck and couldn’t move, but he didn’t know much
about the future. Dana and I wanted more than anything to keep him from becoming traumatized by the situation. While I drifted in and out of consciousness, she played with him in the dayroom and was able to make him understand that I was the same Dad, but different.

Although we managed to spare Will from seeing the dark side of his injured father, my younger brother, Ben, my mother, Barbara, and Dana had to bear the brunt of my outrage. They knew all too well that one of the worst traits of my personality is perfectionism. A particularly bad example for them must have been a visit just before the first press conference after my surgery. I made it clear—actually I repeatedly
demanded—
that they must convince the media and everyone else that I was an experienced, capable rider fully qualified to compete in a cross-country jumping event. I was injured in a freak accident, not a foolish one.

Fortunately, in the midst of my efforts to get the word out from my point of view, which for me was no laughing matter, others began to see the lighter side. Not unexpectedly, first out of the box was
Saturday Night Live
, which reported the following news item on their “Weekend Update”:

“Christopher Reeve says that the humor of Robin
Williams gave him the will to live. The humor of Pauly Shore, however, makes him long for the sweet release of death.”

Next out was Howard Stern:

“Too bad about Christopher Reeve. But man, his wife is a
babe.”

Then a sick joke started to circulate around the country, which made its way back to me in June of ’95:

“Q: What’s the difference between Christopher Reeve and O. J. Simpson?

A: “O. J. walks.”

Looking back now, I’m grateful to the media and the public for breaking the ice, for introducing humor at a time when there was ongoing daily coverage about the gravity of my situation. I had just learned to tolerate partially deflating the trachea tube (the “trache”) inside my neck. That allowed air to pass over my vocal cords, so I could speak instead of just mouthing words. It was a big step forward, both practically and psychologically: for the first three or four weeks I wanted all the air to go directly into my lungs.

Now that I could talk and had become fair game for comedy, I was ready to try some of my own:

Nurse, arriving in the morning: “How are you today?”

Me: “Well, my throat’s a little scratchy, I have an itch on my nose, and my fingernails need cutting. Oh—and I’m paralyzed.”

I remember thoroughly embarrassing another nurse her first day on the job. I had been treated for a skin breakdown in the sacral area, which had plagued me for months but finally healed. Lying on my left side I asked her, “How’s my butt?” She replied, “It looks great to me.” I said, “I know
that
. But what about my skin?” She turned crimson. For a moment I thought I’d lost her, but thankfully she came back for her next shift, and after all these years she’s still here checking out my butt on a daily basis.

I’m happy to say that most of the seventeen nurses and aides who work with me today have been part of the team since I came home in December of ’95. Over time they have transformed from “health care professionals” to extended family. Many of them were initially intimidated by me, so I tried to use humor to make the new recruits more comfortable. Most of my efforts were rather pathetic, but they were still necessary to ease frustration and manage anger. Sometimes I would pull up to a door and then bark to be let out. During the morning ritual of putting new bandages on my neck at the trache site, a nurse would ask if the seal was tight enough. If I was happy with it, I would bark like a seal.
Once a nurse asked me if I liked my wheelchair. I told her I didn’t exactly
like
it but it was a good thing to legally drink and drive at the same time.

Jokes about the wheelchair helped defuse my anger about being in one. I also quickly discovered that when I appeared in public it was best to begin with a light remark to put the audience at ease. At the Oscars in March 1996, my opening line was, “What you probably don’t know is that I left New York last September and I just got here today. But I’m glad I did, because I wouldn’t have missed this welcome for anything in the world.” Knowing that Jay Leno is an avid car collector, I made him an offer on
The Tonight Show:
“When I’m out of this chair you can take it, put a Chevy 350 engine in it, and blast down the freeway.” When David Letterman asked me how I was doing, I told him and the audience, “I was fine, but I think I broke my neck again driving over all the potholes on my way into the city.”

In the process of adjusting to my new life, I began to enjoy slightly sick or inappropriate humor the most. Of all the performances in the 1997 ABC special
Christopher Reeve: A Celebration of Hope
, I particularly appreciated that of Chris Fonseca, a Mexican comedian with cerebral palsy. He complained about the woman who received a $2.9 million settlement from McDonald’s after spilling scalding-hot coffee in her lap, saying, “I’ve done
that. But I kinda liked it. Do I owe
them
money?” Then he told us, “I was in a restaurant awhile back. I started choking. I tried to get help. [He made frantic gestures with his hands.] Wouldn’t you know it, I accidentally proposed to a deaf girl! So I’m married now.”

When I was in rehab, my friend Treat Williams came to visit and found me in the dayroom. His first words: “Don’t get up.” Another friend described a sailing trip with a crew made up of a guy with only one leg, another who had a heart condition, and a third man with a broken arm who could only work the starboard side of the boat. My response: “You should have invited me. I would have fit right in.”

Recently a leading neuroscientist told me that brain damage can help the injured spinal cord recover. Apparently motor neurons can regenerate fairly easily in the brain and then migrate down into the cord. I guess the logical conclusion is that if you are going to end up paralyzed, you might as well smash your head at the same time. Then there would be good news and bad news: you would walk out of the hospital but have no idea who you are. (I only suffered a spinal cord injury; is it too late to pound my head against a brick wall?)

Luckily my greater appreciation of sick humor hasn’t spoiled the pleasure I find in humor of the less cynical kind. Over the years I’ve enjoyed many moments of
simple delight. One morning Dana and I were awakened at about 5:30
A.M
. as three-year-old Will burst into the bedroom with his arms extended, spinning in circles, saying, “Look! I’m a hummingbird!” One of the highlights after my injury was Robin Williams’s sudden appearance in the ICU dressed in full scrubs, impersonating a manic Russian proctologist. During one of his many visits to our home he watched a nurse suction secretions from my trache with a coughalator, basically a vacuum cleaner for the lungs. Robin grabbed it and went to work on the bedspread, then the curtains, and was about to start on the carpet before his new toy was taken away from him.

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF MY NEW LIFE, I’VE ALWAYS
wanted it to be as normal as possible. The longing for normalcy applies to every aspect of living with a disability, from health to relationships, work, travel, and play. It’s been difficult to find the right balance between managing my own needs and meeting my obligations to others. Some days I don’t realize how serious and “heavy” I am. How nice it is then to be teased. I love it when I approach the dinner table, which I occasionally hit as I try to park, and Will picks up his plate, warning, “Look out for the crazy driver.” Or when I tell Dana how
nice her new sweater looks and she reminds me that I bought it for her birthday three years ago.

My oldest son, Matthew, teases me relentlessly about my computer illiteracy and general ignorance of modern technology (I have to admit that when the occupational therapists tried to teach me to use a voice-activated computer in rehab I kept falling asleep). My daughter, Alexandra, refers to me as “The Big Cheese” behind my back. I take that as a compliment, an affirmation for her and our whole family that I’m still an authority figure and worthy of the respect they’ve always shown me. Most important, all three of my children have a great sense of humor. Will has a very dry wit and understands double meanings that would go right over the heads of many nine-year-olds. Matthew and Al, now twenty-two and eighteen respectively, enjoy humor ranging from
The Osbournes
to sophisticated exchanges with adults and their friends in college. It’s a great relief to see that my disability doesn’t seem to be holding them back.

Perhaps the best piece of advice about humor came from a complete stranger who wrote, “Laugh now, so you don’t end up living in the past.” When people ask me, “How do you keep it together?” my answer is, “Mostly with duct tape.” It keeps the hose from falling off the ventilator that keeps me alive; it’s good for taping
pieces of the armrests on my chair back together after I’ve crashed into something; I use it to put Will’s artwork up on our walls. Chamois (our beloved yellow Lab) loves to chase rolls of duct tape when she gets tired of tennis balls. The company that makes it should use me in a commercial.

The emotional extremes of adjusting to a catastrophic illness or disability range from suicidal despair to recovering an appetite for life. Somewhere in between is a gray area of numbness. You don’t feel really depressed but you don’t get excited about anything either. One day blends into another as the same rituals of care are repeated over and over again. You think about calling a friend but decide not to because there’s not much to say. Often you have to be persuaded to go outdoors by a nurse or family member who reminds you that you’ve been sitting in your office without moving for more than six hours. You hear of a recent experiment in a laboratory described as “an exciting breakthrough”: paralyzed rats treated with
X
were able to climb a few steps up a rope ladder six weeks later. You think, “Terrific. What does it mean to me or any of the rest of us?”

In my new life I’ve slipped into that “numb zone” many times. That’s when creating humor and appreciating it becomes very difficult, but even more necessary.
It doesn’t matter if you’re not that funny. (As a friend of Robin Williams for nearly thirty years I learned that lesson long ago.) The point is that the numb zone can become dangerously comfortable. If you get stuck in it for a long period of time you may end up going back to square one, when life after a catastrophe has no meaning.

I’m reminded of a legendary show-business anecdote about a comedian lying on his deathbed. When asked how he was feeling, he replied, “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.” Many of us live in the numb zone whether we are disabled or not. In fact many people who are suffering from some condition look at others who are not ill but seem to be unhappy and wonder what gives them the right to complain. Everything’s relative; no one gets to corner the market on misery. But I agree with the dying comedian: sometimes humor is hard, but it’s worth it.