Baldock remembered for courage

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Page Updated: Thursday, January 13, 2005 11:47 AM PST

Baldock remembered for courage

Baldock tapes up a Marshfield player before a game in 2003.

World File Photo.

By Rick Osborn, For The World

A Coos Bay man's lifelong battle with a rare genetic disease ended

Sunday morning.

Baldock, a well-known figure in Marshfield High School

athletics, died of a fungal infection at approximately 9:45 a.m.

Sunday at Providence St. Medical Center in Portland. He was

27.

Baldock, who worked for nearly 14 years as the trainer for

Marshfield's football program, was born with chronic granulomatous

disease, a condition in which the white blood cells that fight

bacterial and fungal infections are missing the enzymes that make

them effective.

Baldock's infection, caused by the common fungus Aspergillus,

started in his lungs and rapidly spread into his ribs and spine. It

was the same infection he suffered in 1993, when part of his lung

and some of his ribs were removed.

" It had just spread too much to do that (surgery) now, "

Baldock, 's mother, said Tuesday. " He was too weak to survive a

surgery like that. "

Aspergillus is found in the soil as well as in decomposing plant

matter, household dust and building material.

" It's everywhere, " said. " It's in us, around us and normal

people can fight it. It's a terrible infection; very hard to kill. "

Baldock had been in the hospital several times over the last few

months.

" He had an infection that just spread so rapidly and through so much

of his body we knew he probably wasn't going to make it out of the

hospital this time, " said. " In the end he just went pretty

fast. "

The doctor told and Jerry Baldock, 's father, on Friday

that their son wasn't going to make it and the infection was

incurable. Jerry, , 's girlfriend Kayla Schmidt and her

mother were with him when the doctor broke the news.

What the doctor had to say was a sharp contrast from what Baldock's

loved ones told him his entire life.

" That was probably the hardest part of all was just having to tell

, " said. " We've never thought that way. We've always

had hope, just lots of hope, that he would get through this. "

The family always had believed Baldock would live to see a cure. He

participated in a protocol program with National Institutes of

Health in Washington, D.C., to help find a remedy for his particular

disease.

Baldock, indicated, was just as courageous at the end as he

was his entire life.

" He was scared; he knew, " said. " Things just kept

progressing and he couldn't stay ahead of the game. Of course every

time he got sick over the years, it took a little bit out of him. "

Last weekend, Baldock had fought as hard and as long as he could.

" He just didn't have the strength to fight it any more, but he never

gave up, " said. " He never gave up. "

Marshfield football coach Kent Wigle said Baldock was a veteran

trainer who began working with the Pirates in 1991 as a high school

freshman.

" Essentially he's been helping us in some capacity since then, "

Wigle said. " That whole time he was fighting for existence. "

Wigle described Baldock as the perennial team player who always

wanted to see the organization be successful.

Baldock was more than a trainer to the hundreds of Pirate football

players who passed through the program in the last 14 years. Many

players called him " coach " and heeded his advice about how they

should conduct themselves on the football field and in life. Baldock

formed close bonds with many athletes over the years.

" A lot of young men have learned a great deal by seeing all the

trials and tribulations he went through in his life, " Wigle

said. " He touched a lot of lives. I'm including players and coaches

in that. "

Baldock was surrounded by close friends - mostly from his 1995

senior class at Marshfield - right up until the end. Most of his

closest friends were involved with Pirate football in their high

school years.

CGD patients can fight viral infections, but are susceptible to

staphylococcal and other infections. An average person gets sick

once out of 50 exposures to bacteria or fungus. For a CGD patient,

it takes just two or three exposures.

Baldock was one of only about 648 people in the world registered

with the disease, and the only one in Oregon. Initially, Baldock

wasn't expected to reach age 5. Then the estimate became 10; then 20.

But the man who stood about 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed about

100 pounds made a life out of defying the odds.

He was hooked up to oxygen for the past few years and underwent

dialysis treatments regularly to make up for his kidneys, which were

destroyed by the anti-fungal medication he took for most of his life.

Even in their grief, Baldock's family and those who knew him best

say they are relieved in a sense that Baldock's pain and suffering

has ended.

" A person can only take so much and he took a lot, "

said. " He had so many friends and he just loved the kids at the high

school. We think all in all, in spite of what he went through, he

had a high quality life. "