Back from the Dead

by Bill Walton

  There was a lot of pain medication involved. I just slept for a very long time. People tell me that they came to the hospital to visit me. I have no idea. I don’t remember.

  I was in the hospital for a week. They told me that I would need a wheelchair, a walker, and a cane. Because of my size, weight, and length, Darren, an engineer who for years has made a lot of the special parts for my custom Bill Holland bikes, had to fabricate new and extra-long extensions for the adaptive tools and equipment that all seemed built for preschool children.

  The hospital’s physical therapy staff was having a real hard time getting me up from the bed. Because of my two fused ankles, my bad knee, my hands and wrists, my size and weight, and my spine, it is very difficult for me to get up and down.

  I need my hands and arms to do it, and to turn over in bed as well—and have for a very long time now. But I was severely limited in their use and availability because my hands, wrists, and forearms were jammed and covered with IVs, needles, and bandages as the entrance portals for all the medicine that was constantly being delivered.

  Bruce Inniss, with his then thirty-plus years of experience with all my challenges and limitations, had to come across town and get me up and out of bed. And whenever I did get up, I had to wear this huge, cumbersome, and very uncomfortable brace.

  Walking is the basic therapy for spine patients. But with all my leg problems, walking is extremely difficult for me. And I certainly don’t or can’t do it for exercise. Function and need—yes. But I have learned the hard way over time that what is good for my spine is bad for my legs. And the opposite is true as well. What is good for my legs is bad for my spine. Every day is a balancing act.

  I finally made it home after the first week. I was not allowed to go in a car for three months because of the vibrations and movement that would work against the fusion attempt in my spine that Dr. Garfin was trying to get to solidify. He said it would take a minimum of six to nine months, if it worked at all.

  * * *

  Greg Lee would come over to try to lift my defeated spirit and help the time pass more quickly. The vagaries of life were at play, though, as that brutal metronome just would not change the beat. When you’re down and you want time to speed up so that you can move on, it just seems to slow and drag on endlessly—forever. When you’re up and you want that ticking of the clock to slow down so that you can enjoy the ride and savor every moment, it just races away, before it’s already gone.

  Greg had been having life-threatening, life-changing health troubles of his own. For the previous ten years, Greg had been in a nightmarish downward spiral of one health crisis after another. It had started in his spine, went into his heart, went back and forth between the two, and then moved to his blood, skin, nervous system, elbows, hands, fingers, feet, eyes, and any and all other parts of his body. Today, sixteen years after this tragic turn of events for Greg, he is completely disabled, he is in and out of the hospital constantly, he has had endless surgeries, he hasn’t been able to work or drive for years, he has to take massive amounts of daily medication just to stay alive, and his entire life has fallen apart. Other than that, he’s fine. The fact that Greg is even alive is a miracle in and of itself.

  And he was coming over to cheer me up.

  Lori was starting to leave me little Post-it notes: on my pillow, on my tray of food, on my clean clothes and linen for the day. They were little words of encouragement.

  “Today, you turned over in bed by yourself.”

  “Today, you were able to sit up on the edge of the bed.”

  “Today, you were able to feed yourself—a little bit.”

  “Today you went from your wheelchair to your walker.”

  And those were the good things, and signs of progress, that were happening in my life.

  The first big step was the hardest one—the first time I was able to walk, with my walker, from the bed to the other bed. And then eventually from that other bed to another bed. And then to the couch, and chair, and patio. And then to the tennis court. Greg was always there. Over an extremely long and frustrating period of time, we finally made it out the front door. Then eventually around the quiet cul-de-sac block that is our neighborhood.

  One of the new neighbors, who had no idea about Greg’s and my earlier lives together, commented rather strongly to Lori one day how these two really old and broken-down guys were slowly walking—shuffling, really—around the small block where our home is, and how it looked quite painful even to watch. When that same observer was told that both Greg and I are Hall of Fame, former champion and professional athletes, she was shocked and flabbergasted, and asked what had happened.

  Lori had put a hospital bed in our living room. She had to do everything for me, including put my compression socks on. I’ve had to wear them for a very long time now, what with my fused ankles and all the circulatory problems that I have in my lower legs. It was very hard just to get them on and over the bulbous stumps. But she did it all and never complained—about anything. As bad as she had it, though, nobody had it worse than the nurse who had to try to get my bowels working again.

  And that was the good news.

  More Post-it notes:

  “Today, you could go outside.”

  “Today, you could sit with your face in the sun for a few moments.”

  “Today, you could bury your face in the flowers and smell the garden.”

  “Today, you went from your walker to your cane.”

  “Today, you could take your brace off for a few minutes.”

  “Today, you could take one less pain pill.”

  * * *

  One day we were back at Dr. Garfin’s office for a checkup. Lori was in the corner of the examining room while Dr. Garfin and Dr. Liz were huddled over and attending to me. They both kept preaching patience and moderation—the two worst qualities of my character. The three of them were carrying on in a casual, social conversation as I was just in a daze, wishing that it would all be over. Lori was trying to stay upbeat in what was an incredibly depressing existence, and she noted, just in a conversational tone, that although she had read about how stressful this whole process was on the spouse and caregiver, she was holding up well and hadn’t broken down yet under the pressures and burden. Dr. Garfin and Dr. Liz, who seemingly had their total focus and concentration on my pressing needs and their backs to Lori, immediately both stood up, turned, and chirped in unison, “Oh don’t worry, that breakdown will come.”

  And then they quickly returned to their duties over my broken body.

  * * *

  Thirty days after my operation, Lori had her birthday party. She had a small circle of her girlfriends over to the house. She rarely left my side during these trying times, and when she did, she always arranged for somebody who knew what they were doing to be right there in her place.

  I was lying in my hospital bed in the living room. The girls were having their party across the way, laughing and cackling on and on. I was struggling; the life-draining and spirit-zapping drugs and pain medication were still coursing through my veins.

  The phone rang. I answered it. It was my boss, with the news that ESPN had fired me.

  I still had a year and a half to go on my contract. Before my spine failed, I had never missed a day of work in eighteen years. I had volunteered for every assignment possible. I took every red-eye flight. I showed up first and stayed until last. I missed my children’s and family’s lives—for a job. A job that I thought was important. And then when I got hurt doing that job, I got fired. Not even a thank-you, or an “I’m sorry.” Just fired, hung out, and hung up on.

  Lori’s birthday party rolled on unabated. I didn’t—couldn’t, really—tell her the news for two days. I didn’t want to ruin what little fun she was having, for the first time in who can even remember how long.

  With me losing my job and income, I also lost my health insurance. My dignity and self-respect were next to go.

  My friends and family, including Jim Gr
ay, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, and Bob Weir, would call every day. They would urge me to not give up; tell me to hang on; that I could make it. But I no longer believed. I had given up. It was just too hard, hurt too much, and took too long.

  Lori kept up with the Post-it notes:

  “Today, you could pet the dog.”

  “Today, you could put your own T-shirt on.”

  “Today, you could go to the bathroom by yourself, and the nurse didn’t have to go with you.”

  * * *

  Seventy-three days after my surgery, Dr. Garfin said I could stop taking the medicine—all of it. He told me that I could try to put my own compression stockings on. He wanted to watch me do it the first time, to make sure that the stress on my spine was not too severe. My hands, fingers, heck, my entire body was trembling and shaking in pain. It must have taken nearly thirty minutes that first time to get my own compression stockings on. How could I tell? It took everything that I had.

  When I got home, by the time I got inside, Lori had already posted a new note.

  “Today, you were able to put your own shoes and socks on.”

  I don’t know who was happier—me or her.

  But still, it was just too hard. And the whole thing took forever. What was the point, all this pain for these tiny, minuscule gains?

  Dr. Garfin was worried about me, said he could see the sadness and pain in my eyes and face. He sent me to one of his doctor friends. I told him through the tears that I just wanted it all to stop, and that all I wanted was my life back.

  Without a job, without health or insurance, with no signs that I was ever going to get better, without hope and without the dream that tomorrow had a chance of getting any better, I didn’t think that I was going to make it. I didn’t want to leave Lori with a big mess. We moved out of the big house and put the place of our dreams up for sale. We settled, temporarily, into the little guest caretaker’s house on the west end of our property.

  * * *

  At the four-month mark, now into May, Dr. Garfin said that I could go into the pool, although very slowly and carefully. And it had to be at a pool with better disability access than what we had at home, where I had normally just dove in after a long, hard, hot day of whatever. I didn’t want to go. People like me in a state of poor everything—sadness, loss, depression, and denial—always have an excuse and explanation as to why they can’t do something. My initial one was that I still could not drive and therefore could not get there.

  My brother Bruce came and dragged me to the Mission Valley Y, ten minutes from our house. They have a very large indoor pool, enclosed in a glass greenhouse-like structure, bigger than a basketball court, and heated to 90 degrees. The place was full of other Dr. Garfin spine patients.

  When I first got there, I was still all bent over and using my cane. I was making my way slowly and gingerly to the steps to lower myself into the warm, healing water.

  This elderly but very fit dude came bounding by me, with all the confidence, spring, and bounce of a champion—which I found out later he was. He turned and looked at me as he glided effortlessly by. He looked right at me. And he stopped.

  “Don’t do it!” he said. “Don’t do it. I can see it in your face. Don’t do it.”

  He went on to tell me that his name was Mike, and that he was a world champion swimmer. And that he had a friend who years ago was going to kill himself because of his back problems and pain. But Mike had convinced this friend to get into the water, and that the water would save him. This friend had spent years lying on the floor, and within reach he had a bottle of pills, a bottle of whiskey, and a gun. He never knew which one he was going to reach for, because nothing ever worked for him.

  Mike said his friend did indeed slither down into the water and was able to eventually work it all out, and went on to climb back up and out, to live a productive life for another twenty-five years.

  Mike finished his story, and then was on his way to the pool himself with the parting admonition, “Don’t do it. I can see it in your face. Don’t do it.”

  When I first got into the warm water, I struggled to find my balance, equilibrium, or anything else. It took me about three days of going to the water to figure out what Dr. Garfin and Mike meant by the value of going into the warm water. They have not been able to keep me out of the water ever since. The Mission Valley Y opens at 4:30 a.m. I was there waiting for them to open the doors. I don’t swim, I just move. I don’t like to put my head under the water. I just work out all the kinks, all the stiffness, all the limitations that I have in the air, all the things that are not factors in the warm water.

  One day I spent eight and a half straight hours in that pool. I got to know all the lifeguards on a first-name basis. The facilities are fantastic and state-of-the-art, the location—perfect. But it’s the electric amalgamation of people and patrons that makes the place rock from the daily opening of the front door. Every day, countless scientists, visionaries, engineers, artists, technology kingpins, dancers, doctors, inventors, police officers, hippies, entrepreneurs, lawyers, wealth managers, dreamers, teachers, nurses, social workers, librarians, firefighters, beekeepers, space explorers, judges, musicians, pilots, paramedics, beatniks, military personnel, truck drivers, technicians, yoga masters, investors, bohemians, day laborers, stage actors, students, writers, movie stars, financial planners, mechanics, professional athletes, and politicians all pour through the doors with the singular purpose of making themselves better so that the team can ultimately be better. Today the warm water and the pool are the foundation of my spine’s health. The first thing I do every morning when my feet hit the floor is head to the Mission Valley Y and its wonderful 90-degree pool.

  This journey was long and arduous. With all my other injuries combined, I had never been through anything like this. It was so hard, and it still hurt so much.

  Even though I was now off the medication, I could still taste it, as I would do for another two full years—that blue metallic, bitter taste of poison, with every breath, smell, gulp, and swallow.

  * * *

  I also had permission now from Dr. Garfin to slowly return to the weight room. Dr. Garfin’s repetition of words like slowly, patience, easy, and moderation reminded me so much of the early days at UCLA with Coach Wooden. I had no choice this time around. My body really didn’t work anymore, and I was starting over from nothing, from below the bottom.

  In the beginning on my long, hard climb back up, the weight room was sometimes little more than a destination where I would stop to rest from the exertion of getting there. I would often not have enough left to do anything other than lie down on the massage table and wait and hope for all the bad stuff—like fatigue and pain—to go away. The weight room is in our garage, just a few short strides—for an able-bodied person—from the house. But when you can’t move, those few short strides can be as formidable as the Grand Canyon or the escarpment of the eastern Sierra.

  Bob Dylan and Neil Young had both recently come out with new releases. And it was like they were written just for me, as I was trying so desperately to even begin the long, hard climb back into the game of life. Together Through Life and Fork in the Road—I played these two discs constantly in the weight room—just looped them over and over and over, every day, every moment I was in there.

  The new music kept me going. And when Dylan and his band came to town for a summertime show on their Never Ending World Tour, I was, amazingly, able to go. It was my first time out. I got to bathe and bask in the music, the warmth, the glow, and the love—for the first time in who knows how long.

  Not long after, Bob Weir and his RatDog band came to Humphreys. After the show, Bob came out and sat with me, as it was all I could do just to get to the show.

  * * *

  Back home, I still hurt constantly, and I still had nothing really going in any part of my life. Everything was just stuck. There was no light, but I still kept going to the pool and to the weight room. It was more rote than anything of
substance or direction.

  In early September, now seven months after my surgery, I was in the weight room on autopilot. On the stereo, Jerry was singing Bob Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna,” the most beautiful song—about the hope and dream of a better tomorrow. And it was in that moment that things turned for me.

  I will never forget. Dylan’s words were washing over me in Jerry’s voice and guitar. And I knew at that instant that I was going to make it. The daily tears of sadness, loss, and desperation now turned to joy, happiness, and hope. I was going to make it. I could feel it now.

  I turned off the stereo, shut down the weight room, went back across the yard, and told Lori, this time through tears of happiness and joy—

  “I’m going to make it. I can feel it deep inside. It just turned. For the first time in forever, I know. I know that I’m going to make it and that tomorrow is going to be better.”

  I was so happy, and so relieved. I was going to make it, and I knew it.

  A couple of days later, I decided to go out on my bike, for the first time in so long I couldn’t even remember. As always, for so many years, whenever I left the house, Lori would walk me out with the same parting words: “I love you. Please be safe. Please be careful.”

  I was still all bent over. I could barely turn the cranks. But I was riding my bike. And I could feel the wind. I could feel the sun. And I could feel the thin film of sweat on my skin—sweat from actual activity. I was riding my bike. Easily, gently, and just rolling around our wonderful and perfectly flat neighborhood, where all the streets are either dead ends or cul-de-sacs.