Against All Odds

In 1975, a small­ish bay foal with a weak blood­line and a slight­ly back­ward arc at his knees was born at a thor­ough­bred breed­ing farm in Lex­ing­ton, Ken­tucky. Months lat­er, in Jan­u­ary 1976, my son was born in Los Angeles.

On my son’s fifth birth­day, his stom­ach was dis­tend­ed and he com­plained of nau­sea. Our pedi­a­tri­cian mis­di­ag­nosed it as a diges­tive prob­lem. When the swelling spread to his face, arms, and legs, a team of doc­tors iden­ti­fied his ill­ness as a rare con­di­tion where the kid­neys strip pro­tein from the sys­tem. With­out pro­tein, water seeps from the blood­stream into tis­sue and organs, caus­ing swelling, which can lead to infec­tions, blood clots, and kid­ney failure.

By the time they diag­nosed his dis­ease cor­rect­ly, his sur­vival was in ques­tion. After two mis­car­riages, Cindy was four months preg­nant. To con­trol the strain on her as best we could, I took the lead with my son’s crisis.

I dropped every­thing and he and I moved into the Children’s Hos­pi­tal of Los Ange­les. The first night, his eyes swelled shut. I held him in my arms and tried to calm his fears. At dawn, diuret­ics mer­ci­ful­ly flushed the water from his swollen face and he could see again, but the process didn’t stop there. The excre­tion of water con­tin­ued for hours, relent­less­ly shrink­ing him down to a skele­ton wrapped in pale gray skin as he screamed in pain from con­tin­u­ous mus­cle cramps.

When they’d purged all the stag­nant water, the doc­tors built him up with injec­tions of albu­min. He would cry each time the doc­tor unveiled the nee­dle. We tried to turn it into a game. “How long can you hold out before you cry? Bet you can’t make it all the way through the shot?” On day five, the doc­tor and I cheered when he took the injec­tion with­out flinching.

His improve­ment allowed him to sleep, so I wan­dered down the hall. I still can’t talk about the par­ents and kids I met, and with this post I’ve learned I can’t write about them either. The mem­o­ries are too painful to con­front. Survivor’s guilt plays a role, too. My son recov­ered. Many did not.

On the six­teenth day, they cleared my son to go home. In the dis­charge con­fer­ence, the doc­tor said we still had a long way to go. His con­di­tion was chron­ic. Relaps­es are vir­tu­al­ly inevitable. The steroid, pred­nisone, would help his kid­neys func­tion prop­er­ly, but because of its harsh side effects, he could only take it in six-week inter­vals. After each cycle, his kid­neys would per­form nor­mal­ly for an indef­i­nite time, then break down again. I was to test his urine dai­ly. When he relapsed, we would resume the prednisone.

“How long will this last?” I asked the doctor.

“Most chil­dren car­ry the dis­ease into their late teens, some into young adult­hood. You must be vig­i­lant. An unde­tect­ed relapse can be as seri­ous as the first episode.”

Back at home, I gave my son the pred­nisone. It changed the shape of his face to resem­ble a cab­bage patch doll with flushed chip­munk cheeks; he got chub­bier; and he was moody and uncom­fort­able. After six weeks, we stopped the drug and his appear­ance and mood nor­mal­ized. I test­ed his kid­neys dai­ly, dip­ping a plas­tic yel­low stick in a urine sam­ple. If it turned green, he was in trou­ble. Each day I was relieved when the stick stayed yel­low, then imme­di­ate­ly began wor­ry­ing about the next one. I came to hate those sticks.

At the hos­pi­tal, I’d learned a hard les­son. Time with my son was pre­cious and irre­place­able. I vowed not to squan­der the sec­ond chance I’d been giv­en. I vol­un­teered to coach his soc­cer and T‑ball teams, signed up for Dodger sea­son tick­ets, and planned week­end activ­i­ties for us to share. On one of our out­ings that spring, we went to San­ta Ani­ta Park, a beau­ti­ful race­course with man­i­cured dirt and turf tracks and a grass infield. My son picked the hors­es; I placed our two-dol­lar bets; and we played catch on the grass between races.

In the eighth race, he picked num­ber three. We went to the pad­dock where you can see the hors­es up close. Num­ber three didn’t look like much. Sweat­ing and foam­ing at the mouth, the under­sized five-year-old bay geld­ing seemed ner­vous and unruly. We can kiss that two bucks good­bye, I thought.

From the bleach­ers, we watched three come from way back in the pack to pull ahead in the stretch and win by a half-length. We hugged and cheered, and for a short while, I for­got about the dark cloud hang­ing over us.

The fol­low­ing Mon­day, the stick turned gold; lime green the next day; then hunter green. We resumed the pred­nisone dos­es. The cab­bage patch face, weight gain, and mood­i­ness returned. Six weeks passed, and we stopped the drug again.

Cindy gave birth to our first daugh­ter in June, and she became a sec­ond source of love and joy.

Anoth­er relapse came in July, fol­lowed by anoth­er round of prednisone.

The sticks were still yel­low in Novem­ber when my son and I returned to the race­track. To my sur­prise, the bay geld­ing was entered in a major stakes race. He still didn’t look like much to me, but the bet­ting crowd made him the pro­hib­i­tive favorite and my son picked him again.

He start­ed the race bad­ly, falling ten lengths behind and stay­ing there all the way down the back­stretch. Sev­en lengths off the lead going into the last turn with­out much track to go, he seemed sure to lose.

We stood on the rail about fifty feet from the fin­ish line. I looked down the track and got a head-on view of him com­ing up the final stretch. I’ll nev­er for­get that snap­shot image, forelegs pound­ing the turf like pis­tons, clods fly­ing up behind him, wide glossy chest rip­pling with mus­cle, ears laid back, nos­trils flared, head and neck pump­ing pow­er­ful­ly with each stride.

The track announcer’s bass voice boomed, “Here … Comes … John … Hen­ry!” The crowd roared, and a chill went up my spine. He pulled ahead by a nose as he thun­dered by us and he buried the field by two lengths at the wire.

The gallery went wild. My son and I did, too. It was one of the most thrilling moments we’d ever shared.

Days passed into weeks, then months, and the sticks remained yel­low. In August 1982, we reached the one-year mark with­out a failed test.

Com­pla­cen­cy is your ene­my, I told myself. Relaps­es are inevitable. You must be vigilant.

That fall we went to the track to watch John Hen­ry run again. By that time, he was famous and even infre­quent race­track patrons like me knew his rags to rich­es sto­ry. With no pedi­gree, under­sized, ill-tem­pered, and back at the knees, John Hen­ry ran poor­ly as a young horse. A series of knowl­edge­able own­ers sold him for a song until Sam Rubin, a rac­ing novice, bought him for $25000 sight unseen against a veterinarian’s neg­a­tive rec­om­men­da­tion. Frus­trat­ed with John Henry’s lack­lus­ter per­for­mances, Rubin fired his train­er, moved him to Cal­i­for­nia, and placed him with Ron McAnally.

Known for his affec­tion for his hors­es, McAnal­ly and his staff bond­ed with the frac­tious bay geld­ing, train­ing him with car­rots, apples, and ten­der lov­ing care. It worked.

In 1981, McAnal­ly put John Hen­ry up against the best hors­es in the world, and he won six major stakes races, includ­ing the two my son and I watched.

When my son and I returned to the track in the fall of 1982, he was sev­en years old, long in the tooth for a race­horse, but he hadn’t lost a step. He won that race with his patent­ed, heart-pound­ing, come-from-behind charge, and my wor­ries again fell away for at least a few moments as we joined the crowd’s fren­zied cheer­ing for The People’s Champion.

By the time the sum­mer of 1983 rolled around, John Hen­ry was still win­ning races, and my son kept test­ing yel­low. In August, short­ly after we passed the sec­ond anniver­sary of the last green stick, the doc­tor called me.

“No child has ever relapsed after two years of nor­mal kid­ney func­tion,” he said. “Very few chil­dren out­grow the dis­ease before their teen years. Con­grat­u­la­tions. Your son is now one of them.”

It took me a few moments to find my voice. “Thank you for everything.”

My son grew up to be strong and healthy. A suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man today, he’s mar­ried with two chil­dren and his kid­ney dis­ease is a dis­tant mem­o­ry of a cri­sis that forged an iron bond between us.

After set­ting the life­time purse-earn­ings record of $6,597,947 and win­ning every sig­nif­i­cant award in horse rac­ing, John Hen­ry retired at ten years old. A news­pa­per arti­cle cel­e­brat­ing his improb­a­ble suc­cess against all odds said he lift­ed the spir­its and touched the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple. My son and I were two of them. He brought us thrills and joy when we need­ed them most, and his deter­mined charges down the final stretch, run­ning on pure heart and guts, refus­ing to give up, inspired me to per­se­vere and gave me hope.

John Hen­ry lived in the Hall of Cham­pi­ons at Lexington’s Ken­tucky Horse Park until his death in 2007 at age 32. It seems a touch­ing twist of fate that the cause of death was kid­ney failure.