The doorbell rings, and it feels like the sun has broken through the clouds. The dogs rush to the front door. There’s Blue, the yapping chihuahua, and Marshmallow, the Shiba Inu with a limp. And here comes Misty McMichael with a big smile and a big hug.
A visitor has arrived, and Steve McMichael is as buoyant as someone in his situation can be.
Whoever is at the door undoubtedly will bring up his upcoming induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and if he could still smile widely and proudly, he would.
For a while, McMichael derived pleasure from Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream in his feeding tube, but he was cut off because it made him vulnerable to pneumonia. For now, he can experience flavor only in ice chips — Pedialyte, cranberry and Coca-Cola.
These days, satisfaction is scarce and pleasure is mostly a memory.
Three years into a diagnosis of ALS, McMichael, the former Chicago Bears defensive tackle, is about one year beyond when doctors said he might expire. He can’t move his legs or arms. Misty, his wife, has rushed him to the hospital at least 10 times over the last few years, always with dire fear.
He hasn’t been able to communicate verbally for about a year, but he expresses simple sentences through a speech-generating device that reads eye movements. The machine has a few phrases saved that he uses frequently.
“Ass on fire,” he makes it say often, a plea to address a recurring pain.
“More meds,” is another.
If the visitor is expected, he often won’t ask for more meds to ensure he isn’t foggy. There is a lot that McMichael can’t do anymore, but he can still connect with the people who have been important to him.
Some people ring that bell once. Some do it every so often. Some ring all the time.
In the living room is a gray reclining chair.
It was bought so Steve’s sister Kathy McMichael would have a place to sleep in 2021 and 2022 before he had 24-hour medical attendants.
As well as anyone, she can soothe his pain.
She holds his hand and talks about old memories, including games she saw him play going back to high school. Sometimes they watch a YouTube compilation their sister Sharon put together with videos of him playing football at various levels, wrestling, singing and more.
Staying with him for extended periods has been easy for her. Leaving, not so much.
“When I was there, I tried to be upbeat for him,” she says. “But when I was leaving, I thought he would die and I would never see him again. I would cry all the way home on the plane and spend the next two days in bed crying.”
Kathy McMichael, right, calls big brother Steve her hero. (Courtesy of Kathy McMichael)
When Kathy was a toddler, Steve — “Stevie” she calls him — played dolls with her. She had a Barbie; he had a G.I. Joe.
“I have the fondest memories of him,” says Kathy, who is a legislative director for the Texas attorney general’s office. “People don’t realize how kind and sweet he is. He’s always been my hero.”
For most of their lives, they talked almost daily on the phone. When Kathy went through a divorce at 26 and was so upset she couldn’t eat, Steve showed up with a U-Haul to move her, set her up in a new apartment and took her out for a meal every day for a couple of weeks. “He saved me and it turned my whole life around,” Kathy says.
She was with him in February for the announcement that he would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Kathy thought he didn’t look good at the time. She couldn’t see the lovely green in his irises. She feared the worst.
Now, Kathy thinks differently. “He’s not ready to go,” she says. “We’ve talked about it. I don’t know that he ever will be. He doesn’t give up on anything. It’s not in his makeup.”
She’s looking forward to traveling to Canton, Ohio, for the induction, but if Steve can’t go, Kathy will be at her big brother’s bedside.
When Mike Singletary first visited McMichael after his ALS diagnosis, they prayed together.
“My hope was he could get healed,” Singletary says.
That isn’t happening, but the middle linebacker keeps praying with his teammate. Even now, there are blessings to be thankful for, and more to request.
Singletary tells stories, too, hoping to see that old spark in McMichael’s eyes. He talked about a 1984 game against the Raiders in which McMichael, Singletary and company knocked out quarterbacks Marc Wilson and David Humm. Next up was supposed to be punter Ray Guy — but he refused to go in.
“He loved it,” Singletary says. “It’s kind of like reading a bedtime story.”
One day Singletary told him how much he always appreciated him, how much he meant to him, and how he felt he could always trust him. When they were playing together, Singletary said, he always knew where McMichael was going to be.
McMichael tried to respond using his speech-generating device. He tried and tried, but he couldn’t get it to do what he wanted it to.
“He got so frustrated that he started crying,” Singletary said. “That was a tough moment.”
A world traveler, John Faidutti has been to Egypt, Russia, Thailand, China, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina and many other destinations. He has climbed Mt. Rainer and Mt. St. Helens.
But he hasn’t traveled in almost three years.
“I’m afraid of leaving because if Steve dies when I’m gone, it will kill me,” he says. “I have anxiety about that.”
Faidutti, an investor, met McMichael about 25 years ago at a party and bonded on summer afternoons at a swimming pool outside of the apartment complex where McMichael lived. When Misty gave birth to Macy 16 years ago, Faidutti was in the delivery room. Steve asked him to be her godfather and started calling him “Padrino,” Italian for godfather…