to reattach his skull to his spine in June 1995 "was frightening to contemplate. ... I already knew that I had only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the surgery. ... Then, at an especially bleak moment, the door flew open and in hurried a squat fellow with a blue scrub hat and a yellow surgical gown and glasses, speaking in a Russian accent." The man announced that he was a proctologist and was going to perform a rectal exam on Reeve. It was Robin Williams, reprising his character from the film Nine Months. Reeve wrote: "For the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay." In addition to visits from friends and family, Reeve received over 400,000 letters from all over the world, which gave him great comfort during his recovery. Dr. John A. Jane performed surgery to repair Reeve's neck vertebrae. He put wires underneath both laminae and used bone from Reeve's hip to fit between the C1 and C2 vertebrae. He inserted a titanium pin and fused the wires with the vertebrae, then drilled holes in Reeve's skull and fitted the wires through to secure the skull to the spinal column. Rehabilitation After a month in the hospital, Reeve spent five months at the Kessler Rehabilitation Center in West Orange, New Jersey to continue with his recovery and learn skills such as operating his electric sip-and-puff wheelchair by blowing air through a straw. In his autobiography Still Me, he described initially not wanting to face the reality of his new disability. Getting used to sitting strapped into a wheelchair, or taking a shower, were initially terrifying. Reeve developed a deep fondness for many of the staff at Kessler, and through conversations with the other patients gradually started to see himself as being part of the disabled community. For the first few months after the accident, Reeve relied on a ventilator, which was connected to his neck through a tracheostomy tube, for every breath. With therapy and practice, he developed the ability to breathe on his own for up to 90 minutes at a time. Reeve exercised for up to four or five hours a day, using specialized exercise machines to stimulate his muscles and prevent muscle atrophy and osteoporosis. He believed that intense physical therapy could regenerate the nervous system, and also wanted his