Politics-Architects, wheelchairs and stem cells

I have been listening to Michael Graves the architect and product designer being interviewed on a PBS program called Michael Graves on Design. He is currently paralyzed, the after effect of what started as a sinus infection, he says. He said he let himself get too run down and kept working through illness. Many people do that, Mr. Graves was lucky, he lived, although he said it was a close thing.

The interviewer asked many questions about it but the things that stuck me most were:
his talk about pain, always being in pain and his never having considered that. I wonder how many in the audience have any idea what that means?
his wanting to be whole again-a concept that I and my friends sometimes refer to as being real, doing what real people do. 24/7 pain and being real, welcome to our world, Mr. Graves.

Michael Graves is in a wheelchair and he said something about not realizing how much of his work involves movement, that he can't get to things. I think that every architect, every interior designer should spend some time in a chair, checking out their design.

When asked about his future, he said he put his hope in stem cells, after the election.

If only every person effected by with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, advanced kidney cancer, lymphoma; Leukemia; Lymphoma; myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative diseases, various other cancers including the one my brother had-astrocytoma, ... anyway, if only everyone whose life could be spared or improved by unlimited lines of stem cells voted along stem cell lines, we could change the world. Maybe ru486 could be released for tumor treatment too.