Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [230]
When the program ended, Payton walked to the front of the restaurant and grabbed a handful of the Brach’s Star Brites mints he loved so much. He unwrapped one, placed it in his mouth, then spit it out.
He tried another one—same thing.
“Taste one of these,” Payton said, handing a red-and-white mint to Mark Alberts, another restaurant partner.
Alberts sucked on the mint. “It seems OK to me, Walter,” he said.
Payton shook his head.
At home, he began most days by splashing on aftershave. Now—sniff . . . sniff—the smell was wrong. Weird. Off.
One day John Skibinski, a former Bears running back, stopped by Payton’s office in Hoffman Estates. He was used to Walter the laugher, Walter the kidder. “He was all alone and in a very dark mood,” Skibinski said. “He was stuffing these bags, and I asked if he needed help.” For the ensuing hour the two men worked side by side, and no more than two or three words were exchanged. Before he left, Skibinski asked his old pal whether everything was OK.
“You know, John,” he said, “something just doesn’t feel right.”
Finally, at the urging of Kimm Tucker and Ginny Quirk, Payton went to a hepatologist. Tests were conducted, a diagnosis was presented: vitamin toxicity.
Vitamin toxicity?
Six months earlier, Payton had started working with a pair of Las Vegas–based radiologists who were searching for a celebrity to speak on behalf of their new, self-hyped “revolutionary” antiaging program. To win him over, Payton was provided with monthly shipments of human growth hormone and vitamins, valued at thirty thousand dollars a pop. “Walter was very needle phobic,” said Quirk, “but he would inject himself with the HGH and he would gorge on all those vitamins. It was at a point in his life when he was becoming acutely aware of aging. He wanted to stop the process.”
Instead of feeling stronger and livelier, Payton began experiencing the stomach pain and sensory malfunctions. He chalked it up to the HGH and vitamins, and suspended the routine. He was convinced the “vitamin toxicity” diagnosis was on the mark. Others, though, weren’t so sure. The abdominal pain and acne could perhaps be side effects of excessive vitamin intake, but what about the puzzling sensory shifts in smell and taste? “His skin was getting more and more yellowy,” said Gamauf. “It wasn’t normal.”
By early fall Payton was waking up sluggishly and becoming only more tired as the hours passed. The man famously known for his limitless energy suddenly possessed very little. He had no appetite, and whenever he did eat he wound up with gray-tinted diarrhea. Quirk initially chalked the decline up to age and an unrealistic workload—along with the businesses and the radio show, Payton was traveling the country giving motivational speeches, helping Jarrett pick a college, writing a weekly newspaper column for the Copley News Service, working as a color commentator for Bears’ preseason games, and serving on the team’s board of directors (admittedly, he did very little in this capacity). But as the days passed and Payton’s strength and appearance only worsened, Quirk began to believe this was more serious than initially advertised. “His health was [starting to affect] his business schedule,” she said. “I had to carve out some time for Walter to get some rest so he could try and shake off what was bothering him.”
Finally, with the uncertainty burdening him both mentally and physically, Payton scheduled an appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. World renowned for treating rare medical conditions, Mayo’s services were so in demand that Payton, a man who rarely had to wait for anything, would not be seen until early December. “I was not panic-stricken at this point,” he said. “I realized I’ve got to find a resolution. I’ve got to find something that’s going to make me better.