Jesse Malin has spoken out about suffering a rare spinal stroke that has left him paralysed from the waist down.
The 56-year-old rock musician is best known for being the frontman of the New York City-based hardcore band Heart Attack in the Eighties, and the glam rock group D Generation during the Nineties.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Malin revealed that he’d experienced a sudden health issue last month while at a dinner marking the one-year anniversary of the death of Howie Pyro, his best friend and former D Generation bandmate.
As reported by the music publication, Malin “felt a burning pain in his lumbar region that slowly migrated down his hips, through his thighs, and into his heels”.
The singer then fell to the ground and was unable to get up and walk.
“Everybody was standing above me like in Rosemary’s Baby, saying all these different things, and I was there not knowing what was going on with my body,” he said from his room at a rehab facility.
Malin was admitted into the hospital on 4 May and was told that he’d suffered a spinal-cord infarction, otherwise known as a stroke in his back.
Since then, he has been paralysed from the waist down.
“This is the hardest six weeks that I’ve ever had,” Malin said. “I’m told that they don’t really understand it, and they’re not sure of the chances.
“The reports from the doctors have been tough, and there’s moments in the day where you want to cry, and where you’re scared. But I keep saying to myself that I can make this happen. I can recover my body.”
Malin has long promoted the importance of having a “PMA” – positive mental attitude – but noted that in the weeks after his sudden decline in health, he’s had to work harder to muster it.
“It’s almost like a joke. Like, ‘You talk all this PMA? Well, see how you deal with this,’” he said.
“They took me outside for the first time the other day in a wheelchair, and I went through the lobby and I could see the sun shining through the glass, and I just started bawling.
“It felt like I was watching myself in this movie. I didn’t know this person. By the time I got to the corner, I got myself together and into a park, and just breathed in the air.”
To help with the costs of Malin’s medical care, his manager David Bason and a group of friends launched a new campaign via the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. You can donate here.
