Page 31 - ABILITY Magazine - Avril Lavigne Issue

Cooper: Have they figured out what caused the headaches?
bedroom, and I use that as part of my exercise routine, too.
Hedren: We don’t really know because that surgery did- n’t stop them. However, when the results of the MRI on my head and neck came back, my doctor asked, “Tippi, how are you holding up your head?” because my verte- brae were so deteriorated. When I was young, I was a figure skater who fell a lot and whiplashed. And then when we started caring for the big cats, they would tackle me, and I would whiplash. How I survived all of this is pretty amazing. And of course age itself is a great deteriorator of your body.
Martirosyan: What movie were you working on when you got hurt?
Cooper: So the surgery was basically—
Hedren: (laughs) I have another month of lying low, recuperating, and not running around the preserve. But it’s okay because I need this time for myself.
Hedren: —for reconstruction. My doctors were brilliant, Dr. Kayvanfar and Dr. Melamed at Henry Mayo in Valencia. With all the anesthesia going into my body, they said it would take something like a year before it was all of out. Isn’t that scary?
Cooper: Other than the ranch, what other activities or hobbies do you enjoy?
Martirosyan: Sure is.
Hedren: Actually, my life pretty much revolves around the preserve. I do a lot of work trying to educate people about animal rights. I’ve been working very, very hard in Washington to get federal bills passed. I was success- ful in getting the Captive Wildlife Safety Act passed, which stopped the interstate trafficking of big cats.
Hedren: They had me up and walking the day after. I could hardly believe it, and I’ve been walking ever since. But the recovery is still taking a long time. I have a unit that I have to carry with me 24/7 that increases bone density in my neck. But there are cadaver bones in my body. Somehow they created this new vertebrae, in part, by taking a little chip out of my left hip. It was an amazing procedure.
Cooper: Good for you!
Cooper: You’ve got a little bit of cadaver and a little bit of hip put together to mimic what you had?
Hedren: That’s a baby step, but an important one. It’s working, because the great numbers of cats that were in need of sanctuary has diminished, which is very impor- tant. And the bill that I have now in Congress has to be reintroduced because Congressman Buck McKeon retired this year, so now I have to find another representative who believes in the issue. That’s what it takes, somebody who really, really cares and understands the problem. That bill is the Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act.
Hedren: Yes. The suture in the back of my neck is 7.5 inches long, and that 7-inch plate has 12 screws in it.
There are a lot of people who really care about this issue. That’s been of prime importance because I don’t have that kind of money to pay lawyers. They are exor- bitantly expensive. So everything has been done on a pro bono basis. But with this surgery, I haven’t really been able to do much of anything for a while. I’ll be getting back to it soon because the exotic animal busi- ness is huge here. In fact it’s so big that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service compare the money made on it to what people get selling illegal drugs.
Martirosyan: That’s amazing, do you feel it?
Hedren: I don’t feel it, but it has limited my motion. I’ve had to wear a great big neck brace when I sleep. For the first month I had to wear it 24/7, but now when I’m around my house, I don’t have to wear it. When I’m in the car I have to wear it, so consequently I can’t drive, because you have no motion whatsoever. If it hadn’t been for me taking care of myself, and keeping my weight down: I weigh 103, and I’ve never gone over 110 in my life.
Martirosyan: There’s something you don’t hear every- day.
Cooper: Exercise is so important. I interviewed Kirk Douglas after his stroke, and he had a full-out gym in his house. He believed that lifelong exercise made his recovery so much better than most patients his age.
Hedren: When there’s a lot of money involved, things can get very nasty. With the first bill I had, the Captive Wildlife Safety Act, my life was threatened.
Hedren: I so believe in it.
Cooper: I feel ignorant here, but where’s the money?
Cooper: People forget that you don’t need to go to the gym to exercise.
Hedren: In the breeding and selling. California has good laws against buying big animals, but most states don’t have any laws whatsoever.
Hedren: I have something like a ballet barre in my
Hedren: It was a TV series. I don’t even remember the title of it.
Cooper: —the memory’s all washed away.
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