I have a very—I've had a very skittish relationship
with hope going back to when I was diagnosed
with MS.
I really didn't believe in the idea of hope
for a long time.
Frankly, I thought it was for weak people,
you know, I thought that the strength, personal
strength and perseverance, could replace hope.
And when I was at the Vatican I met with a
lot of doctors and scientists who were already
doing stem cell therapy and I was really quite
taken.
I mean, I was quite surprised.
I always sort of had a futuristic view of
stem cell therapy; I thought it sounded great,
but it was down the road.
And I had this flash of hope that I had never
felt before and it really washed over me.
I mean it was quite astonishing to me.
And frankly, having met all these people,
I was determined to find somebody to help
me.
And one of the people on my panel was a neurologist
named Saud Sadiq who's a big MS guy in New
York, and he invited me to come see him when
I got back to New York, and I really had in
my head—and by the way, he casually mentioned
that he had an application into the FDA, and
I was really interested.
And when the FDA approved the trial, which
had taken years of lobbying to make happen,
he told me that I was going to be the first
one he treated, not for any reason except
that I had an unusual presentation of the
disease because it's on one side of my body.
Most people, it's on both sides so it was
much easier to chart progress or the lack
of progress with me.
So I was literally the first person in the
world to be treated with this specific kind
of cell that's called mesenchymal cells, which
are big, blank stem cells.
And that was the beginning of the trial.
But I started writing at that point and I
realized that I had an attitude about hope
that was changing, it was in flux.
And I thought the search for hope would be
a good book because finding hope for me was
a journey, you know.
Look, my head is not in the clouds.
I'm not whistling 'Dixie' and skipping down
the street.
On the other hand, I think that my bearing
and my demeanor have changed.
I think I'm a brighter person, not a smarter
person, but a more voluble person.
I think my state of mind has changed, you
know.
And hope—though hope and optimism are different,
hope can breed optimism.
And I think I'm more optimistic about changing
my life than I have been.
There are no—look, I mean, life is a journey
for the healthy and the sick.
We don't know the destination.
So there are no predictions here for me or
for anybody else.
But I just feel better about myself and better
about my prospects for the future since I've
been writing this book.
Because I've been sick with various things
at various times, you know, I've seen a lot
of clergy very much in passing.
And I talk to them because they're interesting
people.
I talk to rabbis and priests and ministers
and imams, and they all sell hope.
And they're very well intentioned, but they're
very doctrinal about hope, you know.
I'm much more of the belief that it's organic,
that to whatever extent it exists, it's inside
of us.
And I think we just go where it takes us,
and I just don't think you can legislate hope.
On the other hand, I do think that you can
open yourself up, which is what I did.
I mean, my mind was closed and locked and
I had thrown away the key when it came to
hope.
But then it changed.
And once I began the book it really was a
very personal inquiry and I learned a lot
about where I stood on hope.
So I'm very glad that I've done it.
