‘I could feel it’
On the last day of July in 2001, Kilgore arrived in the Dominican Republic for her first treatment. Accompanied by her aunt, she wheeled through the Medra clinic with some culture shock. Small, crowded and dingier than she expected, the halls were lined with stretchers and crying patients who gawked at the blonde American in the wheelchair. Kilgore spoke no Spanish; she met few who spoke English. In a tiny, quiet room, she lay down on a bed while a nurse inserted an IV catheter into her arm. A few minutes later, Dr. Rader and a colleague arrived with a syringe of a thick, pinkish liquid, like blood that had been diluted. He put some into her IV, which took it directly into her bloodstream; the rest, he injected just under the skin of her abdomen. She couldn’t feel the shots, but Kilgore says her mouth immediately filled with a metallic, saltwater taste. Then she fell fast asleep on the bed for an hour, before returning to her nearby condo, where she slept for another 10 hours straight.

Kilgore says she noticed a difference almost right away. In two weeks, she had more stamina and was able to stand for a few seconds, braces still on her legs; in two months, using her braces and a walker, she took 100 steps in the park near her home. Several weeks later, she was eating a burger outside with her mother when a fly landed on her shin, an area that since her accident had lost all sensation. As she instinctively swatted it away, the two women stared at each other, amazed. “The fly was annoying, but I was rejoicing that I could feel it,” Kilgore recalls. Still, her progress stalled after a few months. So in June 2002, Kilgore made a second trip to the Dominican Republic. This time, it took about four months before she noticed any significant difference: a new buildup of muscle mass in her underused quad muscles. Soon she was able to flex her quads and to feel temperature, especially cold, in her right leg.

Kilgore had gone into this not knowing much about stem cells and emerged convinced that they had helped her heal. But she wasn’t in any rush to return to Medra. Partly, it was financial: Although Dr. Rader had cut his usual fees, Kilgore says she had already shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for her first two treatments, and the third would be at least $5,000 more. But she also grew weary of the politics she’d stumbled upon in an effort to get well. On her return from the Dominican Republic in 2001, Kilgore went on a radio program to talk about the treatment. After a few minutes, the show started taking calls, including several from listeners who berated Kilgore; some even called her a murderer. She was surprised by the reaction, and then a bit scared, especially when she kept getting anonymous e-mail messages for weeks afterward. “They’d say, ‘How can you take a life to save a life?’” Kilgore recalls. “I’m a Christian, but these people were really angry with me.”

In early 2006, Kilgore moved to Colorado and started training full-time as a monoskier, with hopes of making the U.S. Disabled Ski Team and going to the 2010 Paralympics. She began to think she didn’t need to walk to be happy. “Being in a chair has made me a better person,” Kilgore says. “I know that I inspire people with all that I can do, and that’s a good thing. If this is how it is, that’s OK.”

Then the 2006 congressional elections propelled the issue of stem cell research into the headlines and forced Kilgore to reconsider, inspiring her to show the country what stem cells could really do. But Kilgore needed to get better to make the point. So after raising money from friends and family, Kilgore made a third trip to the Dominican Republic that summer. This time, as Dr. Rader injected the pink fluid below her belly button, Kilgore nearly screamed out in pain. For the first time, she could feel the needle going in. It was excruciating but also thrilling. “It hurt so bad I was crying on the table,” Kilgore recalls. “But it meant I could feel again.”

Working hard to heal
Kilgore seemed to improve exponentially after her third trip to the Dominican Republic. Her glutes became strong and her bones achy, so she grew fidgety in her wheelchair after long sits. She developed the ability to control her bladder, no longer needing to wear Depends when she left the house. She felt sore, even muscle-weary, after long days training on the slopes. With her braces adapted to allow for her growing leg muscles, she walked with a cane for 10 minutes at a time, and rented a second-floor apartment because she could now climb stairs. Still, she wasn’t cavalier about what she’d put her body through, especially after she started lactating for no reason that her doctor could explain. It could have been unrelated to her treatments; on the other hand, Kilgore recognizes that the side effects of Dr. Rader’s therapy are still unknown, and something — anything — could be going haywire. For now, though, she says it’s worth it. “I don’t know what’s going to happen years from now,” she says. “I can only worry about what’s happening today, and that’s the fact that I’m better.”

Last spring she went back to the Dominican Republic for a fourth treatment, this time in a new facility dedicated exclusively to Medra patients. Newly married and having recently qualified for a paralympic world cup event, she hopes to return once again later this year. She now refers to herself as paralyzed only below the knees — not back to normal, perhaps, but not the almost total paraplegic she had been after the crash.

But is it really because of Dr. Rader’s treatments? Kilgore doesn’t question that she received anything other than what she signed on for — several injections of fetal stem cells — or that they are responsible for her new abilities. Spinal cord patients usually show at least slight improvement over time, says Oswald Steward, Ph.D., director of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at the University of California at Irvine Medical School. Even in injuries such as Kilgore’s, when patients initially have no motor function and only slight sensation, up to 40 percent of patients will recover functionally useful movement in the majority of their muscles, according to the ICCP. And Steward says those who have reason to think they’re improving probably work even harder at therapy. 

By this measure, it may be no coincidence that Kilgore’s greatest healing has happened in the past two years, a period during which she has been training six hours a day on the mountain, five days a week, plus spending time in the gym, swimming and horseback riding. If she keeps at it, keeps getting better, Kilgore knows she may walk herself right out of contention for the disabled ski team, losing another Olympic opportunity. But she’s OK with that. “How could I not be if that means I will walk again?” she asks. “It just means I’ll have to start competing as an able-bodied person again. I’d love it.”

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