October 25th 1991 was a night changed Tim Kimball’s whole life. Out with friends at a nightclub, he was caught up in an altercation that left him paralyzed from the neck down. In the hospital he was told:
“you will never walk again. There is no cure. Don’t even hope for one because repairing the spinal cord is impossible”
But, things have changed since that time. A cure for paralysis is still no longer thought to be impossible. There have been many studies that show that recovery of function following a spinal cord injury is possible. However, progress has been slow.
The good news is: things are beginning to heat up in the search for a cure. We are learning that, while it is a very complex problem, it is not impossible. Scientists are following many different lines of inquiry and some of them offer tantalizing clues that a cure may be found in the near future.
This is all very exciting. Over the years, I have heard about these things. And they have given me hope. But the road from basic science, to human trials, to having a viable treatment is a long and arduous road. There are many pitfalls.
- Lack of funding can grind progress to a halt.
- Researchers have expressed some difficulty in getting people with spinal cord injuries to participate in clinical trials.
With these realities in mind, CureSteps Foundation was founded with the purpose of ending the suffering of people living with chronic paralysis due to spinal cord injuries.