Paralyzed Port Chester woman pins hopes on stem cells, China
Saturday, 08 April 2006
By LIZ SADLER
THE JOURNAL NEWS
PORT CHESTER — Christan Zaccagnino's compact, first-floor bedroom contains the usual trappings of a vibrant 23-year-old.
The shelves teem with stuffed animals and photographs of smiling friends. A framed pastel drawing of Zaccagnino in the brawny embrace of her boyfriend, Army 1st Lt. Boyd Melson, hangs on the wall.
"I stare at that picture a lot, because you can't see my chair," said Zaccagnino, who was paralyzed from the neck down almost 13 years ago and uses a wheelchair. "I almost feel like we're standing in that picture."
For Zaccagnino, standing — and walking without leg braces — has become a dream, preoccupation and daily endeavor. She works out several hours most mornings, adheres to a vegan diet and takes 31 vitamin supplements twice daily — all in preparation for an experimental surgery that she hopes will restore movement and feeling to her body.
"My dream is to walk without braces," Zaccagnino said this week, sitting in her bedroom with pop music playing in the background. "It's my dream, and I feel and believe it's everyone else's that's by my side — my friends, my family."
Zaccagnino and her broad network of supporters — including her cousins, immediate family and former Port Chester High School classmates — are raising money for the $30,000 surgery, which is scheduled for next April in Beijing. Through events and T-shirt sales, they have raised about $20,000. Another fundraiser will take place tonight at the Aura lounge in White Plains.
Zaccagnino was 10 when she dove into her parents' above-ground swimming pool, hit her head on the bottom, and broke two of her vertebrae and injured her spinal cord.
"The moment I hit my head at the bottom, the first feeling I felt was all bubbles all around me," Zaccagnino said. At the hospital, her parents were told she would never walk but might recover limited feeling in her upper body.
But Zaccagnino has beaten expectations with regular physical therapy and fiery determination. She now moves her arms, walks with leg braces and a walker, and can pedal a stationary bike.
"The way I approach anything in life is I do it with a whole heart," said Zaccagnino. Right now, she is directing her energy toward her upcoming surgery, which Melson discovered as a possibility during dogged research on spinal cord injuries and treatments.
During the surgery, Dr. Hungyun Huang of Beijing will transplant cells derived from stem cells in the lining of the nose into Zaccagnino's spinal cord above and below the spot where she was injured. Huang normally uses cells from aborted human fetuses, but Zaccagnino requested that he use cells from the frozen umbilical cord blood of her two young nephews instead.
There is no documented success rate, and the surgery is not approved in the United States. But Dr. Wise Young, a Rutgers University professor and neurologist who has studied the surgery, said each of the dozen of Huang's patients he has spoken with had more sensation and some muscle strengthening after the procedure, according to a forum on the Web site of the W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University.
Melson, of White Plains, a boxer for the Army World Class Athlete Program, believes his girlfriend's spunk and dedication will help her continue to beat the odds.
"I think she is the person who this operation has been waiting for," Melson said.
