Day 4 stem cells: The beneficiaries
Everyone seemed to stare as the wheelchair bumped down the narrow aisle.
They stared as two airline employees struggled, finally calling the pilot to help lift 6-foot-2 Ben Stahl into his seat for the flight to Washington, D.C., and the Working 2 Walk rally.
It hurt his mom’s heart to watch as they tried to stuff his wheelchair into a cramped cargo bin, the flight attendant’s voice calling over the plane’s speaker to announce the delay.
And it was frustrating later to wait two hours to find a special taxi to take them to the hotel, to a room with no handicapped bathroom.
And it was a nightmare trying to sightsee on the cobbled streets of Georgetown, before heading to the Mall, where doctors and politicians spoke about the importance of embryonic stem cell research.
By the time they got to Capitol Hill for a minute with Nebraska Sens. Chuck Hagel and Ben Nelson, Ben Stahl’s body was worn out.
His mother, Emy, did most of the talking and most of the crying.
Would the senators support a bill that would open more lines for embryonic stem cell research?
They didn’t get the answer they hoped to hear.
“They were both against it,” Ben, 22, says from his parents’ home in Tecumseh a year after the rally.
He’d graduated from Tecumseh High School in 2003, a month before he fell asleep driving on a Sunday morning.
The Blazer rolled and he flew out. His spine smashed at the C7 vertebra.
That means he has some feeling in his thumbs and in his forearms, enough to push himself from his wheelchair to his bed, to propel into a car, to navigate his chair and pass the ball playing rugby.
At first he didn’t want to give up any of his dreams. He knew he’d walk again. He knew he’d be a dad some day and run alongside his kids, the way he used to with his nieces.
He was encouraged by the things he and his parents read on the Christopher and Dana Reeves Foundation Web site. There was so much going on. So much hope in research being done overseas.
But Ben knows that the longer the time between the injury and therapy, the smaller the chances of regenerating cells.
Even if the stem cells were made available. Even if the research were funded.
Even if embryonic stem cell research turns into real cures for real people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, spinal cord injury.
Ben has gone on with his life. He completed the academic transfer program at Southeast Community College in Lincoln. He hopes to be at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this fall, majoring in political science.
He hasn’t stopped wanting to walk. But it’s more than that. It’s all the little things he can’t do, the bodily functions he can’t control. Falling out of his chair if he leans too far forward, dropping his phone and having to wait until someone comes home to fetch it for him.
At a symposium in D.C., Ben and his mom saw a mouse that had been paralyzed and then injected with embryonic stem cells.
“He walked,” Emy Stahl says. “He didn’t walk good, but he could move.”
It gave them hope.
“A lot of guys, they don’t want to get their hopes up,” Ben says. “They’re content and they’re trying to go on with their lives.
“That’s good thinking, but I think we need to be the ones at the front of this.
“There needs to be a cure so other people don’t have to go through the life changes we have to go through.”
He gives speeches on stem cell research.
He asks people to think about life and when they believe it begins.
He tells them he doesn’t equate embryonic stem cells with human life. He tells them there are thousands of fertilized eggs in clinics that are never going to be used. And that in research, the embryonic stem cells are harvested five days after fertilization.
He tells them it’s frustrating, watching the politicians debate. And that there are laws to safeguard against abuse, against cloning.
But first he tells people about Ben Stahl, before.
I was 17 years old …
My dreams were never-ending and my days were as carefree as I could have ever desired.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
They stared as two airline employees struggled, finally calling the pilot to help lift 6-foot-2 Ben Stahl into his seat for the flight to Washington, D.C., and the Working 2 Walk rally.
It hurt his mom’s heart to watch as they tried to stuff his wheelchair into a cramped cargo bin, the flight attendant’s voice calling over the plane’s speaker to announce the delay.
And it was frustrating later to wait two hours to find a special taxi to take them to the hotel, to a room with no handicapped bathroom.
And it was a nightmare trying to sightsee on the cobbled streets of Georgetown, before heading to the Mall, where doctors and politicians spoke about the importance of embryonic stem cell research.
By the time they got to Capitol Hill for a minute with Nebraska Sens. Chuck Hagel and Ben Nelson, Ben Stahl’s body was worn out.
His mother, Emy, did most of the talking and most of the crying.
Would the senators support a bill that would open more lines for embryonic stem cell research?
They didn’t get the answer they hoped to hear.
“They were both against it,” Ben, 22, says from his parents’ home in Tecumseh a year after the rally.
He’d graduated from Tecumseh High School in 2003, a month before he fell asleep driving on a Sunday morning.
The Blazer rolled and he flew out. His spine smashed at the C7 vertebra.
That means he has some feeling in his thumbs and in his forearms, enough to push himself from his wheelchair to his bed, to propel into a car, to navigate his chair and pass the ball playing rugby.
At first he didn’t want to give up any of his dreams. He knew he’d walk again. He knew he’d be a dad some day and run alongside his kids, the way he used to with his nieces.
He was encouraged by the things he and his parents read on the Christopher and Dana Reeves Foundation Web site. There was so much going on. So much hope in research being done overseas.
But Ben knows that the longer the time between the injury and therapy, the smaller the chances of regenerating cells.
Even if the stem cells were made available. Even if the research were funded.
Even if embryonic stem cell research turns into real cures for real people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, spinal cord injury.
Ben has gone on with his life. He completed the academic transfer program at Southeast Community College in Lincoln. He hopes to be at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this fall, majoring in political science.
He hasn’t stopped wanting to walk. But it’s more than that. It’s all the little things he can’t do, the bodily functions he can’t control. Falling out of his chair if he leans too far forward, dropping his phone and having to wait until someone comes home to fetch it for him.
At a symposium in D.C., Ben and his mom saw a mouse that had been paralyzed and then injected with embryonic stem cells.
“He walked,” Emy Stahl says. “He didn’t walk good, but he could move.”
It gave them hope.
“A lot of guys, they don’t want to get their hopes up,” Ben says. “They’re content and they’re trying to go on with their lives.
“That’s good thinking, but I think we need to be the ones at the front of this.
“There needs to be a cure so other people don’t have to go through the life changes we have to go through.”
He gives speeches on stem cell research.
He asks people to think about life and when they believe it begins.
He tells them he doesn’t equate embryonic stem cells with human life. He tells them there are thousands of fertilized eggs in clinics that are never going to be used. And that in research, the embryonic stem cells are harvested five days after fertilization.
He tells them it’s frustrating, watching the politicians debate. And that there are laws to safeguard against abuse, against cloning.
But first he tells people about Ben Stahl, before.
I was 17 years old …
My dreams were never-ending and my days were as carefree as I could have ever desired.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
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