Post by seraph_phoenix on Mar 7, 2006 14:59:53 GMT -5
Dana Reeve, widow of Superman star Christopher Reeve, and tireless crusader for spinal-cord injury research, has died of lung cancer. She was 44. Reeve died Monday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medical Center in New York, said Kathy Lewis, president of the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
"On behalf of the entire board of directors and staff of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, we are extremely saddened by the death of Dana Reeve, whose grace and courage under the most difficult of circumstances was a source of comfort and inspiration to all of us," Lewis said in a statement. "Dana will always be remembered for her passion, strength and ceaseless courage that became her hallmark."
One of the nation's best-known caregivers, Reeve won worldwide admiration for her tireless devotion to her husband after a horseback riding accident left him almost completely paralyzed for the final decade of his life. After Christopher Reeve's death on Oct. 14, 2004, she took over his position as chair of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which funds research into spinal-cord paralysis cures. In August, Reeve revealed that though she did not smoke, she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. However, she remained optimistic about her chances for recovery and often invoked her late husband's name as her role model in her struggle.
Reeve made one of her final public appearances at a fund-raising event for the foundation in November and said she was responding well to treatment and that her tumor was shrinking. "I'm beating the odds and defying every statistic the doctors can throw at me," Reeve said then. "My prognosis looks better all the time."
She said she kept her spirits up by remembering the man she spent years caring for. "I was married to a man who never gave up," she said. "He taught me so much about courage and about going forward. He really was in this with me." Reeve was the mother of 13-year-old Will, her son with Christopher Reeve. No funeral arrangements have been announced.
"On behalf of the entire board of directors and staff of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, we are extremely saddened by the death of Dana Reeve, whose grace and courage under the most difficult of circumstances was a source of comfort and inspiration to all of us," Lewis said in a statement. "Dana will always be remembered for her passion, strength and ceaseless courage that became her hallmark."
One of the nation's best-known caregivers, Reeve won worldwide admiration for her tireless devotion to her husband after a horseback riding accident left him almost completely paralyzed for the final decade of his life. After Christopher Reeve's death on Oct. 14, 2004, she took over his position as chair of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which funds research into spinal-cord paralysis cures. In August, Reeve revealed that though she did not smoke, she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. However, she remained optimistic about her chances for recovery and often invoked her late husband's name as her role model in her struggle.
Reeve made one of her final public appearances at a fund-raising event for the foundation in November and said she was responding well to treatment and that her tumor was shrinking. "I'm beating the odds and defying every statistic the doctors can throw at me," Reeve said then. "My prognosis looks better all the time."
She said she kept her spirits up by remembering the man she spent years caring for. "I was married to a man who never gave up," she said. "He taught me so much about courage and about going forward. He really was in this with me." Reeve was the mother of 13-year-old Will, her son with Christopher Reeve. No funeral arrangements have been announced.
