Adele Schneidereit was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a toddler after her family noticed that she was having difficulty crawling. From that moment on, people began telling her she couldn't do things. And Schneidereit learned to disregard these misguided attempts to protect her from herself, attending high school and college, obtaining a driver's license, marrying and starting a family and co-founding the Inspire the World Foundation-an organization dedicated to finding a cure for cerebral palsy. As part of her awareness-raising campaign Schneidereit recently began a project that once again shatters the boundaries that other people establish on her behalf.

"The idea was born in February," she said. "I think I had always just waited for somebody to find a cure for cerebral palsy. I was told that there were charities out there that cared about cerebral palsy and I had my family and that was that. Then, one morning I woke up and said 'I'm going to learn to fly and I'm going to fly around the world. And I'm going to make a video about it.' So I drafted a letter of my plan and sent it to my financial planner and he thought I was crazy."

Accusations of insanity notwithstanding, Schneidereit hired an independent film production company in San Luis Obispo-Aspect Studios-to help her make her film. Within less than a month she was taking flying lessons through a San Luis Obispo flight school called Pigs Can Fly. Schneidereit began strong, with an estimated three lessons a week (which eventually decreased to two) but discovered that, like with everything else in life, she would have to progress at her own pace and overcome prejudice and physical obstacles that other would-be pilots would never face. Learning to fly is a dangerous endeavor for anybody, but with a weaker left arm (like most people with cerebral palsy, Schneidereit is affected in the left hemisphere of her body), Schneidereit decided to hire a personal trainer to build the necessary strength to control the plane's yoke. For the first couple of lessons, she had to climb into the plane through the passenger side, eventually learning to climb into the pilot's side through some experimentation.

More terrifying than actually controlling an air-born vessel was finding a neurologist willing to support her application for her pilot's license.

"They're going to make me fly better than the average person to let me get my FAA license," Schneidereit acknowledges with both resignation and determination. "And then there was the FAA experience, with flight surgeon Dr. Abernathy. The medical tests the FAA is requiring me to do, I can't imagine anyone else having to do." In order to convince the neurologist that she is physically capable of flying, Schneidereit showed him a video filmed during one of her training sessions. After watching the video and conducting an extensive physical examination, the doctor agreed that she was physically capable of piloting a plane.

For the most part, Schneidereit handles these increased demands and doubts like an old pro, but at times her frustration seeps into the pilot's log blog that she keeps on her Inspire the World Foundation website. The blog traces Schneidereit's trials and successes along the path to obtaining her pilot's license, but her film, Hemispheres, will address the broader, global implications of cerebral palsy. Citing Inconvenient Truth as the type of film with the degree of impact she would like Hemispheres to make, Schneidereit has been interviewing people whose lives have been affected by cerebral palsy. Her film crew attended the 2007 United Cerebral Palsy Annual Conference where they met, and interviewed Emily Dolenz, United Cerebral Palsy's Development and Marketing Coordinator and daughter of Micky Dolenz of The Monkees.

"The longer I do this the more people come up to me and say 'my nephew has cerebral palsy' or 'my sister has cerebral palsy,'" said Schneidereit. "That's how I found Chris Cooper and Marianne Leone. Their son died of cerebral palsy complications in 2005." On May 31 Schneidereit flew to Kingston, Massachusetts to interview the talented couple. (Cooper has been in American Beauty, The Bourne Identity, Capote, and Syriana among other films and Leone is both a writer and actress) Another big name interview that Schneidereit hopes to include in the film's trailer, which will be released on the film's website any day, is comedian Josh Blue from The Last Comic Standing. These interviews will be supplemented by not-yet-scheduled interviews that Schneidereit conducts during her flight around the world.

Schneidereit originally considered beginning her world-spanning journey in the spring of 2009, but recently decided that June of 2008 might be a better departure date. With just a year to finalize the details of her trip, she has a lot to think about. As of yet, she hasn't chartered her course, though her flight instructor, Howard Morse, has offered her advice. While making these plans, she will have to take into account the fact that airplane fuel is not available everywhere in the world. Then there's the question of whether her husband can accompany her during the flight. While she would like the companionship, he is concerned that people will believe that he flew the plane if he decides to go with her. Schneidereit will have to fly well over 20,000 miles, but is reluctant to estimate a time frame for her journey.

"I would like to interview interesting people with cerebral palsy along the way," she said. "The point is not to go as fast as possible."

Financing the entire project-filming, flight school, circumnavigating the earth-is definitely a challenge. Schneidereit estimates that fuel alone will cost $21,000-if prices don't escalate over the course of the next year. She is accepting donations through her web site, www.inspiretheworldfoundation.org and has pledged that any funding that exceeds the cost of producing Hemispheres will be spent researching for a cure.

Many claim that there is no potential cure for the birth defect that afflicts between 5,0000 and 10,000 infants born in the United States each year. But for Schneidereit hearing that there is no cure is like hearing someone tell her that she can't drive or attend a normal public school.

"I have no idea why they're saying there is no cure," she said. "There is a cure. We just haven't found it yet. It takes effort to find a cure and maybe they just don't want to admit they haven't given enough of an effort."

Schneidereit understands the significance of timing, and she's hoping that the timing of her effort will help her gain support. She believes that because the symptoms of cerebral palsy are identical to the symptoms of a stroke, once scientists identify a cure for cerebral palsy, they will also have a cure for strokes. With a large generation of baby boomers poised to enter that particular phase of medical concerns, a lot of people could benefit from Schneidereit's efforts.