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At U.Va., Reeve came under the care of a noted neurosurgeon and teacher of neurosurgeons, John Jane, who would operate on Reeve himself. Before that, however, Reeve needed to be stabilized to prevent any more compression in the spine. He was placed on a bed with a kind of halo attached to his head and a heavy weight that kept him immobile. He was given morphine. Sometimes he would attempt to flail and would jerk his head from side to side, and more sedation would be necessary.
"When they told me what my condition was, I felt that I was no longer a human being," he says. "Then Dana came into my room and knelt down to the level of my bed. We made eye contact. I said, 'Maybe this isn't worth it. Maybe I should just check out.' And she was crying, and she said, 'But you're still you, and I love you.' And that saved my life."
Now they had to wait for his lungs to clear. The bottom part of both lungs had begun to fill with fluid. In the past, doctors had no way of removing that fluid, and the patient would die of pneumonia. "They clear the lungs through repeated suctioning," says Reeve. "They stick a tube right down into your lungs and pull out the liquid. You can't feel down to your lungs, but you can feel the tube go down your throat."
At one point when the sedation wore off he extubated himself by pushing the breathing straw out with his tongue. He tried to say something to Dana. Alarms went off. Nurses ran in to wrestle his head back down.
Few operations are as perilous as dealing with a C1-C2 injury. Sprouting from the spinal cord are 31 pairs of nerves. Closest to the brain are the eight cervical nerves, which process information received from the neck, shoulders, arms and hands. When Reeve was thrown from his horse, he could move only his head. (Most head-turning muscles are controlled by nerves emerging from the brain, not the spinal cord.) Now, a year later, he is able to shrug his shoulders and breathe on his own for lengthening periods of time, which means that his first, second, third and fourth cervical nerves have begun to function again.
Dr. Jane was working within 1/16 of an inch of the brain stem. He placed a wire under both lamina--the bony covering of the spinal cord. He took bone from Reeve's hip and squeezed it down to get a solid fit between the C1 and C2. Then he put in a titanium pin the shape of a tiny croquet wicket and fused the sublaminal wire with the first and second vertebrae. Finally, he drilled holes in Reeve's skull and passed the wires through to get a solid fusion.
What Jane did was put Reeve's head back on his body. After the operation Reeve told him, "I want to thank you for giving me my life." Jane was in tears when he left the room.
At first Reeve was told that he was a "C1 incomplete," which means that the spinal cord was still intact and that there was room for improvement, perhaps to the level of a C4, which would allow movement in his arms. Then he was told that he was a "C2 complete," which indicated no potential for improvement. A "complete" means that the spinal cord has been transsected, severed or so badly damaged that it can never be repaired. Fortunately, the first diagnosis was correct.