Back from the Dead

by Bill Walton

  There is nothing like the pride of a dad.

  * * *

  We had the privilege about this time of being part of Yao Ming’s triumphant return to China, bringing with him all his new friends from the NBA and the Western world of business—all spearheaded and orchestrated by David Stern. Awesome does not even come remotely close to describing how great it all was. When everybody else immediately went home from Shanghai and Beijing, Lori and I stayed for three more weeks. Yao Ming connected us with everything we could possibly ever need as we traveled to the enchanted lands of Shangri-la, Lijiang, and eastern Tibet.

  We also started making regular bike trips to Death Valley with our chief adventure officer, Chris Kostman. His AdventureCORPS outfit was able to take us places that we could never get to on our own.

  It was also this year, though, that my own dad’s body was failing him. He and I had a great relationship, and with him just ten minutes away in La Mesa, I spoke with my parents or visited them every day—and had for years now. I would just lie down on the carpet with our dogs, stretch it all out, and go over all the issues of the day with my mom and dad. Visiting my parents was very much like visiting Coach Wooden, except that they didn’t try to tell me what to do as much as Coach did. And at the end of every visit or phone call, my dad would always say to me, “Thanks, Bill, you’re a wonderful son.” And I would return his love and kindness with a line from Jerry Garcia, when I would say goodbye or good night myself: “Dad, I’m a lucky old son.”

  Every time I would say that “I was a lucky old son,” my dad would counter with “Frankie Laine!” one of my dad’s favorite singer-songwriter-entertainers, who sang the same song. And I would come back with “Jerry Garcia.” It was a ritual that we did to the end. And the end was now here.

  Toward that end, my dad was in and out of the hospital down the street all the time. And it was here that I failed my dad one last time. He knew he was coming to his own end. He wanted that to come in his own house, the house that he had built for us. He made me promise him that I would not let the doctors and paramedics take him to the hospital to die.

  I was there with him when the ambulance showed up one final time. My dad was on the stretcher, with me at his side and holding his hand. He squeezed my hand and looked up longingly at me, telling me, with tears in his eyes, to not let them take him away from his home anymore. He reminded me that I had promised him.

  I was the one who closed the ambulance door for the last time.

  As the time came, we all gathered there together—Mom, Bruce, Cathy, Andy, Lori, and me. The doctors and nurses at the hospital could not have been nicer or treated him better—but all the same, he hated having to be there. I went out on my bike to clear my head, and I rode slowly and silently all around our town. To all the places that had meant everything to me and our family. I stopped at every one of them, from the first places that my mom and dad had lived in the earliest days; to the church where my parents got married; to the Prado in Balboa Park, where my parents had their wedding reception; to all the places that my dad worked; to our schools and church; to Muni and through all the parks that my dad used to love to take us to; to the beaches, lakes, libraries, concert halls, music stores, and museums that I always used to go to with my dad; to Rocky’s house; and finally to the house where we all lived in La Mesa.

  When I got back to the hospital, my dad’s body had begun shutting down. We all sat together with him, and he took his last, quiet breaths. When it was over, I hugged and kissed him. I whispered thank you, and told him that I loved him more than words could tell. And then he was gone, forever. I’m not sure that he heard me.

  * * *

  As you get older, each year seems more miraculous, more remarkable, more worthy of celebrating. And as Coach Wooden neared his ninetyfifth birthday, a lot of people wanted to celebrate his life and the influence he’s had on all our lives. ESPN and HBO both did specials on Coach, though he was very reluctant and did not like any of this.

  The ESPN production ruined and ended my friendship with one of Coach’s favorite players and people from the early days—Rafer Johnson. The ESPN producer was on me constantly, endlessly, and relentlessly to deliver Coach and our UCLA guys for the show. When I did everything that he asked, and everybody was there, on time and ready, the producer said we had too many guys. He then made me tell Andy Hill and Rafer that they were not needed for the show—this after Andy and Rafer had completely rearranged their busy schedules. I never should have done it. It was one of the lowest points of my life. I should have walked out myself. Rafer has not spoken to me since.

  At the premiere of the HBO special, at the Bruin Theatre in Westwood, the same place we used to go to the movies while students almost forty years before, I was walking Coach Wooden to his seat. He had his right hand on my elbow for balance. He started tapping me on the leg with his cane in his other hand.

  I leaned down to hear his hushed question. “What do you think, Bill?”

  I asked him what he meant. I didn’t understand his line of thinking.

  He picked it right up. “Do you think that they’ll say nice things about me?”

  I told him that this was a documentary movie, that they could do whatever they wanted—but that I was pretty sure he’d come out OK.

  I had no confidence that it would be the same for me.

  The lights went down, and for the next hour, there was not a sound to be heard other than the show. It was a dazzling production. When they brought the lights back up, everybody was so happy, proud, and relieved.

  Afterward, Coach Wooden was asked if he would kindly say a few words. Coach reluctantly agreed.

  He stood at his theater seat and spoke from there. He started slowly. He was in his late nineties. A couple of minutes in, he found a groove and hit his stride. And as he started rolling, he was looking around and seeing all his players, family, and friends who had come out for this glorious moment of reflection and gratitude, everyone staring up at him in appreciation, love, and respect—he just broke down and started crying.

  None of us had ever seen this before. With all that had gone down, over so many years and so many moments, Coach was simply and finally overwhelmed by it all.

  * * *

  Consumed and overwhelmed were the overriding emotions for all of us when Ram Rod called with the news that he had cancer. Every great team has real and true elements of purity to them. That was Ram Rod—to the Grateful Dead, and to everybody else he ever came into contact with. It was fast, brutally painful, and tragically sad. As much as we all tried, there was nothing we could do. And then it was over, with nothing left—forever. Robert Hunter’s eulogy was as brilliant, powerful, and moving as anything he’s ever done.

  Over the last nearly three decades, I was most fortunate to be David Halberstam’s friend. It is hard to imagine anything in life being better. When he called in April 2007 saying that he would soon be in California on his next project, after having just turned in his self-acknowledged greatest work, I was mad and sad that I would be out of town on business and unable to connect. Imagine my sorrow and burden when David died suddenly and immediately in a car crash on his way to work that day—a day when I couldn’t get there to help. It all turned indeed into the coldest winter.

  As I continued to fly endlessly across the country, my body was really suffering from this life lived in a world built for preschool children and an unrelenting and overwhelming workload.

  One of the many things I love about my life is all the fantastically cool things that I get to do all the time. And how my calendar and schedule is always full. I got to be part of the Martin Luther King Memorial groundbreaking ceremony on the mall in Washington, D.C. I was honored and humbled to be named one of the top ten pundits in all of media; one of the top twenty sports business representatives around the globe; and to be named one of the Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time.

  But about this same time, Mark Shapiro left ESPN, and that brought an end to my calling the games.
Instead, I was assigned to the endless, mind-numbing, maddeningly repetitive, sterile, context-free studio shows out of ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. Bristol is about as far from me and my life as you can possibly get. It takes more than thirteen hours on the clock to fly from San Diego to Bristol. It is easier to get to China. I took an apartment in West Hartford, but with the bitter cold, rain, ice, and snow, coupled with the uneven terrain, I just started to shrivel up and die. The nerve pain from my spine that had plagued me for most of the past thirty-five years steadily worsened.

  Even so, I still had an extensive business side of my life with all the NBA and ESPN sponsors and advertisers. I was also working the corporate speaking circuit. I was still flying across the country two to three times per week—in both directions.

  In the icy frozen world of the ESPN mothership, unable to move or warm up, working incredibly long and late shifts, there was no way for me to stretch it out or move forward—in anything. The ever-increasing, burning nerve pain forced me to take to bed with me as many ice bags as my freezer could make. I could not put the fire out. And before I could even fall into a state of semi-sleep, it was time to get up and go back for more of the endless studio shows. I couldn’t eat, sleep, move, or think.

  On Monday, February 25, 2008, I was in Bristol, leaving to fly home to San Diego to see Lori, the dogs, the plants, the sun, and the glowing warmth of the Golden State. When I parked the car at the Hartford airport, there was a beautiful bluebird that had missed its trip south and away from the numbing cold. She huddled under my temporarily warm motor, begging me to take her with me. More than thirteen hours later, when we landed in San Diego, I could no longer move. I went to the ground and couldn’t get up. My spine had collapsed and failed.

  And, sadly, the song that the morning always brings went deadly quiet.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 15

  * * *

  Knocked Down—It Gets to Wearin’ Thin

  THEY JUST WON’T LET ME BE

  February 2008

  I was on the floor, and I could no longer get up. Burning, radiating nerve pain coursed through my entire body. I couldn’t eat, think, sleep, or move. I had nothing.

  When I couldn’t show up to work that week, my eighteen-year broadcast partner, Jim Gray, asked the rest of our team where I was. When he found out about the collapse of my spine, he called every day. He would urge me to hang on, to not give up, and he constantly reminded me that, yes, I could make it back.

  Jim would ultimately find Dr. Steve Garfin at the UC San Diego Health System. He found NuVasive for me, a remarkable group of visionary humanitarians and entrepreneurs who have created over the last dozen years or so an innovative spine technology company based here in San Diego that has pioneered lifesaving, life-changing procedures, techniques, and equipment that have all revolutionized the terrifying world of spine health.

  But I knew nothing of any of this, nor what lay ahead for me. I was on the ground, incapable of anything. I went through all the stages: I’m going to die; I want to die; and the worst stage of all—oh my gosh, I’m going to live and this is what I’m stuck with—forever.

  I tried everything I could: physical therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic adjustments, alternative medicines, meditation, massage, yoga, core strengthening, medication, injections. And nothing worked. I was a hopeless, helpless, and pathetic ball of flesh.

  I had to eat my meals lying on the floor, facedown. I couldn’t get dressed. I couldn’t reach for anything.

  When I had to go to the doctor’s or anywhere else seeking relief, Lori had to round up the people in our neighborhood to push, pull, drag, and carry my lifeless body into the car. Then they would pack me in ice and give me all the medicine they could find. During the car ride, I would tell Lori that it was over for me. And that she should go. Get out now, while the getting’s still good.

  She stayed. She worked so hard to make it and me better. She gave up everything in her life, including raising her beloved service dogs, to try to save mine. Before she chose to try to save me, Lori had raised eight of those precious dogs that went on to give life to so many others. She and my longtime physical therapist, Bruce Inniss, ultimately saved my life.

  I have held off talking about Bruce Inniss until now. Bruce, like me, grew up in San Diego, down in the South Bay. He has been my physical therapist and master healer for the last thirty-five years. He doesn’t like me to say that, since he hopes that his patients get better and move on. But I keep coming back, and I’m very frustrating to him.

  Bruce Inniss has been there for me since the early days of the San Diego Clippers. He has seen it all. He has done it all. He brought me back from all my operations, including both my ankle fusions, and kept me going when all seemed lost.

  But this time we couldn’t break through. No matter what we did, I kept getting worse.

  I tried all that I could. I met regularly with the spine surgeon, Dr. Garfin. He was very quiet and subdued, very much like Coach Wooden. He was also from the Midwest, from Minneapolis, and had come to San Diego in the late 1960s to build his life while saving others. He was calmly impressive and guardedly laid everything out for me. But spine surgery was the last thing that I ever wanted. I had never talked to a single person who ever had anything positive to say about spine surgery. And after the news got out and I disappeared from the scene, I was bombarded with calls, letters, people just showing up—all warning of the horrors of spine surgery. None of it was encouraging.

  I tried to wait it out.

  I tried to work it out.

  I tried to think it out.

  I tried to wish it out.

  I tried to pray it out.

  I thought about the Philippine witch doctor.

  I tried to ignore it.

  No matter what I did or tried, everything just kept getting worse. Here I was, up against the wall—and with no spine to even hold me upright. After an interminable purgatory, I finally made the decision to have Dr. Garfin try to surgically fix my broken body. I had no other choice—other than death.

  When I went to the hospital for my preoperative exam and final instructions, I couldn’t make the fifty feet from the car to the examining room. I was all crumpled over. I was having trouble breathing. They thought I was having a heart attack. They turned the hospital sirens on indicating an emergency medical crisis was in progress. Through the tears, gasping, and grimacing, I struggled to tell them that it was my spine.

  There are few places that I’ve ever been in my life more depressing than the waiting room of a big-time, high-level spine surgeon. Dr. Garfin is a great healer. He and his team heal in many ways. They are so good that their crushing workload is overwhelming. His patient list is the worst of the worst. And there is an endless line out the door of people who will do anything to get in to see him—for a chance to get better.

  All the broken, crooked, and crippled bodies and lives. The wheelchairs. The external halos. The walkers. The canes. The pain. The sadness. The desperation. And then there are the spouses and family members who get sucked down into this agonizing cauldron and lose everything themselves.

  Fortunately for us, Dr. Garfin’s amazing assistant, Dr. Liz, took all our frantic phone calls and patiently tried to calm us down, what with our endless questions, anxiety, and uncertainty.

  My surgery was on a Sunday morning, early. I was the only patient that day. Dr. Garfin pulled together the best of the best for his team.

  I was lying on the hospital gurney. Dr. Garfin called for the drip to begin, the sedation that would put me to sleep. I have had the drip far too many times. I know what it’s like. I know what it means. I knew that I didn’t have any time left.

  Dr. Garfin was standing by my side, trying to reassure me. With my last bit of anything—life, breath, strength, whatever—I weakly reached out and grabbed his forearm as he stood there at the side of my bed.

  I looked up at him. The anesthesia was taking me away. I could hear a faint countdown in the
background.

  And I begged him, through my tears, “Please fix me. Please give me one more chance. Please let me play in the game of life one more time. Please let me climb on the mountain once again. Please let me ride my bike one more day.”

  And then I was gone.

  * * *

  Spine surgeons, when they’re inside you, try to do five different things, all based on what is necessary for any particular case. They take junk and broken stuff out. They decompress the spinal cord. They straighten and align the spine. And then they stabilize it with all the equipment, devices, technology, and hardware that NuVasive makes.

  I’m told that the surgery took eight and a half hours, and that there were four incisions—one on my side and three on my back.

  I don’t know when I woke up. When I did start to become cognitive of things, I felt as if I had been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. And after that giant truck first ran over me, the driver went up the street, turned around, and came back and did it again. And then it was as if they called in the steamroller to finish me off.

  I hadn’t told anybody that I was having spine surgery, other than the people who absolutely had to know. That Sunday, February 8, 2009, Luke and the Lakers were at LeBron and Cleveland, playing the NBA Game of the Week on ABC. Before the game, Luke was chatting with my friend and former broadcast partner Mike Breen, and when Mike asked Luke how I was doing, Luke told him quietly that I was having my spine reconstructed that morning. During the game and broadcast that day, when the conversation turned to Luke and his play for the Lakers, Mike mentioned on the air that I was having spine surgery at that very time.

  My mom had no idea of any of this, other than that I was home quite a bit lately. Ever the librarian, my mom has no interest in sports. But ever the proud and loyal grandmother, she never missed one of her grandson’s Laker games. When she heard Mike Breen say that I was having spine surgery right then, she got very concerned. Fortunately, brother Bruce was able to calmly reassure her.