Christopher Reeve at this point probably could not afford the operation.
He has gone through four different health insurance policies to pay for the
equipment and staff needed to keep his body in a condition where it would
be useable should he be cured of his paralysis.
Perhaps he would volunteer to undergo one of the first attempts to do this
on a human, provided that doctors would agree to experiment on someone so
famous. His celebrity status would go a long way in helping the general
public to overcome some fears about radical body modification.