Ready For A New Rival Butler Finds Solace With His Faith, Family In Battle Against Cancer
Brett Butler slips off his shoes, plops down on a sofa in his sprawling home and rests his bare feet on the coffee table, right beside the Bible and a book written by another ballplayer who battled cancer, Dave Dravecky.
Butler has just returned from a trip to the grocery store with his wife and kids. While they scurry around the kitchen, emptying the bags and planning that night’s meal, all he wants to do is rest.
“I should be on the exercise bike, but I don’t have the drive to do it,” he moans. “I’m fatigued right now, and I haven’t done anything physical in a month.”
Before long, his oldest daughter, Abbi, peers around the corner of living room, a glass of water in one hand, four pills in the other.
“My nurses,” Butler calls his wife and four children. “They’ve got me taking about 90 pills a day.” He tilts his head back - to prevent the water from regurgitating through his nose - and grimaces through the pain as the pills slide down his throat, past the spot where a cancerous tumor once lurked.
“I’m trying to boost up my immune system,” he explains. “I’m a fighter. I’m going to beat this thing.”
Still aching from the surgery that extracted the tumor a couple of weeks ago and left a jagged ear-to-shoulder scar on the right side of his neck, Butler is gulping down pills, seeking out specialists in alternative medicine, and drinking all sorts of weird concoctions. He’s equipping his body to deal with what he expects to be the worst part of his treatment: six weeks of radiation treatment.
“Boy, this is nasty,” he complains when his wife Eveline delivers a mixture of carrot and apple juice that was transformed into a milky shake when she added protein powder.
“I thought it would be,” she replies, a rascally grin on her face, “But you know what? We have more.”
Doctors believe they extracted the cancer from Butler’s throat during the surgery last month, but radiation treatments will begin June 17 to make sure. Five days a week, for six weeks, Butler’s body will be blasted with powerful rays that are supposed to remove any vestiges of the cancer.
He likes the sound of that, but the side effects have him troubled. He could loose his saliva glands, giving him dry mouth for the rest of his life. His taste buds will be thrown out of kilter. His teeth will be more susceptible to decay. Not to mention the immediate agony.
“The first two weeks of this are pretty much a piece of cake,” he said. “Then, about the 15th day of radiation, it hits you. The description I’ve heard is that it’s like going out in the sun and your neck is bright red and then you go back out again with no protection on. It’s just going to burn on the inside. Your throat swells up. You don’t want to eat. You don’t want to do anything.”
Butler worries about losing another 15 pounds. Already, he is down 10 pounds from his playing weight of 162.
Still, the competitive spirit that took a 98-pound teenager who couldn’t start on his high school team to a spot in the major leagues for 16 years hasn’t diminished. Instead of gobbling up fly balls in center field for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Butler is gobbling up knowledge. No suggestion is dismissed. Every book or pamphlet on the subject is worthy of a glance. He even took a weekend trip to Tijuana, Mexico, to be treated by a homeopathic specialist.
“When something like this happens, you realize that the doctors are so busy, have so many people to deal with, you have to take it upon yourself to get information,” he said.
Though doctors tell him his chances of recovery are excellent - “90 to 95 percent,” he said - Butler has pondered the possibility his life could be cut short by this hideous disease. “I’m not afraid to die,” he said. “I know if I die, I’m going to heaven.”
Butler already has decided that if the cancer spreads through his body, he wouldn’t take chemotherapy “just to prolong a death sentence.”
“I don’t want my kids to see me with a blown-up face, my hair falling out,” he says. “I’d rather my kids remember me the way I am than to see that. I’ll just take some pain pills and let the good Lord take me when he feels like it’s time to go.”
Butler admits the religious faith that has guided his life for more than two decades was severely tested when he was diagnosed with cancer.
“Yeah, I was mad. I questioned God. I said, ‘God, why?”’ he remembers. “It was like, ‘Lord, I’ve had only 38 years. Is that all you have for me? You know how much I love you, how I’m working for the kingdom of God.”’
Now, Butler is convinced this is all part of God’s plan for him. He looks for signs to back up his faith, like the friend who told Butler of being consumed by an inner peace that left her with the definite impression he wasn’t going to die.
“I’ve got to step out with a childlike faith and believe that God will take care of me,” he said “That’s what has gotten me through all this. I don’t know how anybody could get through any hard time without a saving faith. … If, in fact, there were a death sentence in this, I’d be able to handle that.”
Next to his faith, Butler’s family is the most important thing in his life. He calls Eveline “my rock” and speaks proudly of the heartfelt concern his children - 13-year-old Abbi, 12-year-old Stephanie, 11-year-old Katie and 8-year-old Blake - expressed when they heard daddy had cancer.
“I wish it was me,” Abbi told her father in an especially poignant moment. “I hate to see you in pain, dad.”
Butler thinks he could get used to the idea of being a full-time father, hauling his kids to school and Little League, welcoming their friends into the massive house that the family moved into last November in a suburb north of Atlanta.
“That’s one reason we built this house,” he said. “It’s kind of a party house. We’ve got the pool, the tennis court, the basketball court. I want my kids to bring their friends home, to be able to enjoy them. We want to surround ourselves with the kids and be a part of that.”
For now, returning to baseball is not an option. First, Butler must make sure the cancer is gone, and his body is so weak that he has no desire to take the field.
But the day will come when he wants to put back on the uniform. Butler played the game too long, too well, with too much enthusiasm, to let it slip away like that. He carries around a little sports tracker device that allows him to keep up with Dodger games inning by inning. He’ll return to the ballpark for the first time in a few days when the Dodgers visit Atlanta. He hopes to rejoin the team for a pennant drive in September.
“I love the game and I want to be a part of it,” Butler said. “Lord willing, I’ll be able to do that. But I don’t know what he has in store for me.”
The best advice he got came from Dravecky, the former pitcher who lost his throwing arm to cancer.
“He told me not to look to the long term, look at the short-term goals,” Butler recalls. “Swallowing and blowing my nose were big things to me.”
If he’s not able to play again, Butler would like to work toward being general manager of his team. Or maybe he could become a commentator for ESPN. Some of his acquaintances in California mentioned a film career, knowing that he wanted to be an actor as a child. He hasn’t ruled out the seminary.
“God will reveal to me what he wants me to do,” he said.
Suddenly, Butler’s wife is lurking over him again, making sure he has finished off his drink. He nibbles at the bitter brew and hopes Eveline won’t notice that the glass isn’t empty. No such luck.
“Finish it up. Gulp it down. Let’s go,” she orders. Butler complies, grimacing all the way to the bottom of the glass.