Nothing Is Impossible (4 page)

B
efore my injury I believed that our overall health is affected by our state of mind, but I was highly skeptical of those claiming to be healers. The damage to my spinal cord and all the ensuing complications led to a reconsideration of those beliefs. I’ve had pneumonia, blood clots, broken bones, and reactions to drugs—which have all required medical care ranging from pills to IV antibiotics to hospitalization. I’ve also been approached by many well-meaning individuals who have professed the ability to heal me noninvasively, using only their “special powers.”

An emergency, such as a blood clot or a collapsed lung, has always led me immediately to the ER. Long-term issues of gaining strength and recovery of function have made me wonder if there are indeed genuine healers who can, as they claim, effect change simply by
touch. Most have been easy to dismiss because their claims of past success seemed dubious at best and their proposals for treating me sounded very far-fetched.

But twice I let my guard down and allowed myself to be examined and treated. The first healer arrived from Ireland—a short, friendly character in his late fifties wearing a bright green jacket. My first thought was that a leprechaun had come to save me. He claimed that acupressure along my spinal cord would release endorphins that would relieve the pain and create “a new environment.” I told him that there was no pain, but that didn’t seem to faze him in the least. Suddenly my right arm twitched and moved a few inches. He immediately took credit, but everyone in the room knew that it was only a routine spasm—an involuntary movement caused by nerves seeking a connection to the brain. Score: Medicine 1, Healer 0.

Supernatural health provider number two actually made a house call. (Try getting a regular doctor to do that.) He had been recommended by an acquaintance who told me that he had successfully cured people of ulcers and cancer, as well as one spinal cord injury. Will answered the doorbell, and down the hall came a banker or a stockbroker in his mid-thirties, dressed in conventional business attire. My first thought was, “I’m glad he has a day job.” He accepted a glass of water and
settled into a chair in my office. I soon learned that he
had
been in the business world until he was “called” to change his life’s work (though apparently not his wardrobe) five years earlier. He began his assessment of me by looking at my hands and noticing that the little finger on the left was broken. I told him that it was an old fracture from a family soccer game and I’d never bothered to have it set. He announced that we should do “first things first” and that he would heal the finger right away. I sat silently for over an hour with my eyes closed because I didn’t want to disrupt his concentration. He massaged the finger, kneaded it, moved it in all directions, but kept trying to start a conversation. How did I like living out in the country? Any new film projects? I see (looking at a picture of our boat on the wall) that you’re a sailor. Me too! I kept my answers short, instinctively not wanting to give him too much information. At last he announced that he was done. I looked down and saw that indeed the little finger was lying flat on the armrest of my chair instead of in its usual contracted position. I have to admit I was pretty impressed—especially because, like the leprechaun, he didn’t charge anything for the session. We made plans for another visit the next week. But even before he had reached the front door on his way out, my finger began to curl up again. It has remained that way ever since. (It
seems that both times I got what I paid for.) Score: Medicine 2, Healers 0.

In the quest for a cure from disease or relief from psychological and emotional distress, you could put pure medicine at one end of the spectrum and supernatural interventions at the other. I’ve always been fascinated by the possibility that the treatment for disease and the cause of disease lie somewhere in the middle. I share the widely held belief that there is a relationship between the mind and the body that can both create a physical condition and enable us to recover from it.

As a teenager I suffered from occasional asthma and a variety of allergies. For some reason the worst attacks came on when I went to visit my father. Was that because of mold spores or mildew or the tall grass around his nineteenth-century farmhouse? A few of my friends near my home in New Jersey lived in similar houses, but I never had a reaction when I visited them. The only logical explanation had to be that I was extremely anxious to please my father. It was difficult to relax, be myself, or literally “breathe easy” when he was around. Since these issues were never discussed, it might have been tension building up inside that often left me gasping for breath and sneaking off to use my inhaler.

Perhaps the level of stress in the mind determines
the severity of its manifestation in the body. There is overwhelming evidence that stress can be linked to hypertension, ulcers, and a compromised immune system. Many researchers agree that some forms of cancer are caused or made worse by repressed anger. When President Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal in 1973, he faced the nation and told us, even as beads of sweat formed above his lip, “I am not a crook.” At the same time he developed phlebitis—a condition that causes pain and swelling due to partially blocked circulation—in one leg. Was this a coincidence, or was it caused by the mental stress of maintaining a cover-up? Whenever we don’t feel well we tend to blame it on external causes: the weather, contact with others, the environment, or even something we ate. These may well be contributing factors, but we should acknowledge that the source of many ailments is within ourselves.

If we accept that the mind/body connection can produce harmful effects, then we can assume that the same connection has a healing power as well. Before my injury, a positive attitude probably helped me bounce back from various injuries and illnesses. But nothing that had gone before could have prepared me for an experience I had two years after I was paralyzed.

In the spring of 1997 a small red spot appeared on my left ankle, probably caused by irritation from my
shoe. Within a month the red spot had become a serious wound. It was only an inch and a half wide, but the skin had broken down, layer after layer, until the ankle-bone itself was exposed. Then the site became infected and turned septic as it spread up my leg. I was examined by specialists and told that there was the potential for a systemic infection, which might prove fatal. If they detected any indications of that scenario the only recourse would be to amputate my leg above the knee. I remember my immediate reaction, which I did not hesitate to share with the experts: I told them that was absolutely unacceptable, because I would need my leg in order to walk. I remember mentally drawing a line in the sand, establishing a barrier that could not and would not be crossed.

I was put on a ten-day course of a powerful antibiotic administered intravenously. As I sat on the porch of our summer home in Massachusetts, gazing for hours on end at the hills surrounding our property, I kept picturing my ankle as it used to be. Slowly but surely new layers of skin began to form. Six months later the wound had closed. Within a year the ankle appeared perfectly normal.

I don’t claim to understand precisely why my wound healed and my leg was saved. Certainly Fortaz, the prescribed antibiotic, is an aggressive therapy. But
even the strongest antibiotics don’t always work; I had learned that from other treatments when I was in rehab. Looking back at it now, I believe that I wouldn’t have recovered without the drug. But I also believe that I wouldn’t have recovered without an ironclad agreement between my mind and my body that I had to keep my leg.

There were many times during the healing process when I still felt very anxious about the outcome. It was much like the decision not to commit suicide after my accident—the decision created consequences of hard work, sacrifice, and the beginning of a journey into the unknown. It was relatively easy to tell the doctors that I would refuse amputation; my response was instinctive and probably irrational, driven by my aggressive and competitive personality. It was far more difficult to sit on the porch with my leg propped up on pillows constantly trying to push doubt and negativity out of my mind. One minute I would think, “I can do this—I can heal this wound.” The next minute I would think, “What are you talking about? You don’t have any special powers.” Then I would try yet again to picture my ankle as it used to be and tell myself that it deserved to be whole. I reminded myself that I had always recovered from all kinds of setbacks. There was even good reason to believe that sooner or later my spinal cord could be repaired
and the nightmare of paralysis would be over. Why shouldn’t this ankle come with me as I moved forward?

Internal chatter after a brave decision is probably the rule rather than the exception. When a field commander gives his troops the order “Follow me!” he might be extremely anxious or downright terrified. But he has to project confidence and authority, or the troops will only reluctantly do their duty without rallying behind him. In some cases the old adage “Fake it until you make it” is actually helpful. You make a choice or set a goal and let people know about it. Then just getting started leads to the discovery of internal resources that help us go farther than we ever thought we could.

My friend David Blaine is perhaps the best example of an individual who has used those internal resources to go farther than ordinary people can imagine. A slender, soft-spoken young man, he performs unbelievable magic with an air of nonchalance that almost borders on lethargy. But what sets him apart are his feats of endurance. He has been buried alive, frozen in a block of ice, and most recently, in May 2002, he stood on top of an eighty-foot pole for thirty-four hours before jumping into a pile of cardboard boxes. He has been described as a thrill seeker, a nut case, a guy who will do
anything for publicity and money. As someone trying to overcome the limitations of a disability, which requires exercise and discipline, I take exception to those who so readily dismiss his achievements.

The truth about David is that he was pushing the limits of his endurance long before the media had ever heard of him; that he lived for years just above the poverty line; and that he prepares for every “stunt” with rigid self-discipline. He trained for the pole for over a year, starting at twenty feet and learning from the best Hollywood stuntmen how to fall safely into airbags. Once he was comfortable standing on a twenty-two-inch platform and jumping from that height, he moved up to forty feet and gradually worked his way up to eighty. He never used a harness or a safety net. Why did he do it? Because he was always afraid of heights and wanted to free himself from that fear.

The vast majority of people live within a comfort zone that is relatively small. The comfort zone is defined by fear and our perception of our limitations. We are occasionally willing to take small steps outside it, but few of us dare to expand it. Those who dare sometimes fail and retreat, but many experience the satisfaction of moving into a larger comfort zone and the joyful anticipation of more success. A person living with a disability may find the courage to leave the comfort zone
of his own house for the first time. An able-bodied individual might decide to face claustrophobia by taking up scuba diving. Even as our country tries to cope with terrorism, most of us know intuitively that living in fear is not living at all.

David’s physical preparation included daily uphill climbs on a mountain bike so that he would have enough strength left in his legs to control his jump off the pole at the end of thirty-four hours. He also learned to fast for long periods of time; in fact, he didn’t eat anything during the entire performance.

The most extraordinary use of his own resources was the power of his mind. He used his mind to overcome his fear of heights and to summon the willpower to go without food. His mind kept his body from failing. When he did jump, he imagined that he was falling into air mattresses, which he had done almost exclusively in practice. The result was a perfect landing.

THE VICTORY OVER THE ANKLE IN 1997 WAS A LANDMARK
for me. Since then I’ve been much less concerned about what else could go wrong with my body. I’ve also found the self-discipline to exercise when I don’t feel like it, which is extremely important because overall health and any hope of recovery can’t be achieved without it.
I’ve learned to stick to a conscientious diet; keeping my weight under control makes muscular and cardiovascular conditioning much easier. Since ’97 my skin has stayed intact; as a result I have the freedom to sit in my chair for as many as fourteen to fifteen hours. In the old days I was often limited to five or six. I have been able to avoid many urinary tract infections and keep the bases of my lungs functioning almost normally.

All of that is extremely hard work, and many times I don’t succeed. Just recently I suffered from severe bloating of my stomach and difficulty breathing. X rays showed that huge pockets of air had formed in my large intestine, which was putting pressure on my diaphragm. The remedy didn’t come from the mind/body connection; I made changes in my diet and underwent a procedure to clear the blockage.

Perhaps I am still in the early stages of learning to control manifestations in my body with the power of my mind. At this point it seems that I am able to respond to emergencies such as the threatened amputation of a limb. I get the sense that in time I will discover the ability to do more. But now I’m confident that when something comes up, when germs invade and systems fail as they inevitably do, my mind and body, with the assistance of medicine, will keep me healthy and prepared for the future.