NEW YORK (AP) – Dana Reeve, who announced three months ago that she has lung cancer, said Thursday she is responding well to treatment and that her tumor is “shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.”

Reeve, 44, won worldwide admiration for the support of her husband, “Superman” star Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1996 and died last year. She announced her lung cancer diagnosis in August.

“I’m beating the odds and defying every statistic the doctors can throw at me,” Reeve told the audience at a fund-raising gala for The Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation on Thursday evening. “My prognosis looks better all the time.”

Dana Reeve was dressed for the gala in a long, flowered gown accessorized with several necklaces, including one – a dog tag bearing the “Superman” symbol and the words “Go Forward” – that the foundation is selling.

At the gala, the Christopher Reeve Spirit of Courage Award was awarded to husband and wife Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

“It’s bittersweet,” Douglas said in accepting the award. “We miss him so much.”

Among those in attendance were Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. Robin Williams performed, and Paul Newman urged people to write checks.

Newman, who had initially pledged $50,000, upped his contribution on the spot. “What the hell, make it $100,000,” he said.

Dana Reeve succeeded her husband as chair of the foundation, which he founded. She hoped to raise $2 million at Thursday’s event, a foundation spokeswoman said earlier.

Asked before Thursday’s event how she kept her spirits up, Dana Reeve said she “had a great model.”

“I was married to a man who never gave up,” she said.

Before the event, she told reporters that she was “responding well to treatment.”

“The tumor is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking,” she said.

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On the Net:

Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, http://www.christopherreeve.org