Otto paid big price for football glory

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As he awakes every morning, Jim Otto looks at his $40,000 carbon-fiber leg, decorated with the Raiders' shield and a tiny version of his famous No. 00 jersey. It sits near the bed, detached from its owner, waiting for him to have breakfast with his wife, Sally, and do all the little things that help him prepare for the day. By 11 a.m., though, they will be joined at the hip, the artificial limb and the former NFL center, and they will stay that way for 12 hours.

Wearing the prosthesis can be exhausting and extremely uncomfortable, as the connecting points grind into his pelvic area, but he made a commitment when the insurance company agreed to pay for this high-tech leg with its microprocessor knee. He would use it regularly and try to reclaim as much of his old life as possible.

It hasn't been easy, though, not even for a man who had endured 15 years of pounding in the NFL and close to 70 surgeries on his knees, shoulders, back, nose, you name it. This summer, a surgeon pried Otto's sternum open and worked on his heart, which had been damaged by all the infections that claimed his right leg.

"It's doing great now," he said, tapping his chest and smiling. During an interview at his home in the Sierra foothills, Otto made several whimsical references to his medical nightmares, even savoring the comedy of a story about falling in his office at the Raiders headquarters and lying helplessly on the floor before someone walked in and found him.

The humor appears to be part of his survival instinct. By all rights, he should be dead several times over. In nine years, Otto had five life-threatening infections, which set up camp around his artificial right knee and then waged war on the rest of his body. By July 2007, he had to choose between his leg and his life.

The amputation, he said, led to the greatest physical pain he had ever felt. There was no funny spin to put on this, so he didn't try.

Oakland Raider great Jim Otto poses for a portrait at his home in Auburn, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008. Oakland Raider great Jim Otto poses for a portrait at his home in Auburn, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008. Photo: Steve Yeater, For The Chronicle Photo: Steve Yeater, For The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Otto paid big price for football glory 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Discussing certain elements of his health problems made Otto very somber: the fear Sally has had to cope with, the gloomy emotions that came with losing his leg and a deep concern for younger people going through various stages of what he has already endured. After his amputation, he inquired about the treatment of soldiers who lost limbs and was relieved to learn that they receive extraordinarily heavy medication. He doesn't know what to make of the apparent increase in infections among this generation of athletes, especially the drug-resistant strains of staph.

As a player and as a businessman after football, Otto could have been a role model for any of them. Yet he is also the quintessential cautionary tale, a reminder that every second of sports glory carries an enormous risk. Just by looking at him, no one could imagine the excruciating pain of the last 40 years. He walks stiffly because of the artificial leg, but he remains a strapping man with a booming voice and posture that should be the envy of other 70-year-olds.

The infections that took over Otto's body had the same profile - strong, stubborn, almost bigger than life. His first encounter with septic shock occurred in 1998, and almost a decade after he had both knees replaced - for the second time. Otto couldn't name all the types of infection and isn't sure what triggered them - an ingrown toenail, for all he knows.

But he has a pretty good idea why his body couldn't fight off the bacteria. His daughter, Jennifer, had died a year earlier at age 39, after a blood clot appeared during a hysterectomy, sending her into cardiac arrest. She left four children behind.

Fever and forgetting

"My doctor told me: 'When Jennifer died, you started to die, too,' " Otto said. The grief seemed to shut down his immune system.

His temperature hovered around 105 degrees for eight days that first time. A lot of what happened during the subsequent infections, he can't remember. He was too feverish. After the third episode, the doctors recommended amputation. Otto refused.

"That's the easy way out," he said. "Let's fight to keep my leg."

The fourth infection appeared in 2005. One of Jennifer's children was ill, and Sally flew to Colorado Springs to help. Alone in the house, Otto could feel a fever coming on one night. He mentioned it to Sally when she called and went out of his way to say: "I love you with all my heart." He had a bad feeling about what was coming.

The next morning, Sally phoned to check in. Jim didn't answer. She tried again. He didn't answer. She called Ryan Berry, a Placer County sheriff's deputy who had befriended the family. Jim could barely hear the phone, and the only thing he could sense vividly was the feeling of his dog Suzy, one of their three bichons frises, gently licking his eyelids, presumably trying to wake him. Berry said when he finally reached Otto, "he was in sort of an altered state."

A life and death moment

Berry arrived at the house and found the side door unlocked. He carried a nearly unconscious Otto to his truck and then rushed him to the medical center at UC Davis. "He's a big guy," Otto said. "He weighs about 300."

In retrospect, the story sounds fascinating, half sweet, half-terrifying. A little white fluff ball of a dog standing guard over one of the NFL's legendary tough guys until a burly peace officer can rescue him. In real time, though, it was terrifying, and Sally had to tend to a sickly husband yet again.

"Sally didn't deserve this," Otto said.

He worried about what he had put her through, all the hours she had spent administering antibiotics through an IV, and the endless worry. Last year, when the amputation became inevitable, he had a new concern. As he was being wheeled off to surgery, he asked her: "Honey, are you going to love a guy without a leg?"

Sally said she replied without hesitation. "I don't love your leg," she said. "I love you. I want you to be healthy."

He vowed that by Christmas he would walk to her and give her a hug.

Painful rehab

Agony and painkiller-induced delusion followed the surgery. Otto learned later that when friends would call the hospital, he'd unwittingly bestow some of his most prized possessions on them. As far as he can remember, he tried to give away one of his cars and a precious gun. Once, he called Berry at 4 a.m. and told the deputy that he was being held captive in a cabin.

"It was like having early Alzheimer's," he said. When he finally started feeling like himself, he asked Sally: "Did I ever curse at the nurses?" He considered them angels and didn't want to abuse them. His wife assured him that that hadn't happened.

The doctors, though, were in for some invective. Over the years, Otto had received devoted attention from his surgeon at the University of Utah hospital, but that doctor had retired. Now, he was being treated by a younger physician, and when he learned that there would have to be a follow-up amputation, to take the stump down a little and relieve some of the pain, Otto let the staff know, in un-sanitized terms, that they had better get it right this time.

They did, and he finally went home to start his rehab. The prosthetic leg was ready for him in early November, almost exactly a year ago. He remembered his vow to Sally, and he told his physical therapist about the Christmas goal. They beat it by a long shot.

"He was very motivated," said Julie Gross, a physical therapist at UC Davis's medical center. "He was very determined to get moving quickly."

A Thanksgiving gift

In almost no time, he progressed to using a single-point cane. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Sally was out shopping. When she returned, her husband was standing, waiting for her. He walked across the room and hugged her, a whole holiday ahead of time.

The amputation, though, was never the easy way out, as he had assumed. Even on his bad knees and with his balky back, he used to be able to stride through the hills near his house, covering five miles in less than an hour. He can still walk, but "walking on a prosthesis consumes 65 percent more energy," he said. He can still fish and hunt, but not the way he did before. The pond outside his house sits below a slope, and he can't risk it. He has to fish from flat shores or a boat.

Occasionally, he still feels "ghost pain" in the area of his lost leg. He reminds himself that he has to learn new ways of doing things, because he can't turn back. He empathizes with all the young soldiers coming back home as amputees.

"Some of them have mental problems, and I can see how that can happen," Otto said. "There's been times when I've been sitting in a chair, and some of the things I've been thinking, I probably shouldn't have been thinking."

More often, he sticks to pragmatism and gratitude. He tries to make sure that someone is with him at all times, in case he falls. He was alone that day in the Raiders' office when he toppled over. "As I went down," said the man of many orthopedic disasters, "I thought: 'Oh, this is going to be a good one.' "

But once someone showed up and found him, he was fine.

He never really needed the job with the Raiders. After football, he owned a walnut orchard, five successful Burger King franchises, a piece of a bank and an office building. For a while after the team moved back to Oakland, even though he appeared to be a fixture in the seat next to owner Al Davis during games, he wasn't even officially on the payroll.

But when he and Sally sold their fast-food joints, his job became more formal, which helped them hold onto vital health insurance. He is grateful for that, and for simply being here.

"I could be under the grass," Otto said. "I know that, and I'm glad I'm above the grass."