It may be the one thing touring artists fear the worst – becoming ill while on the road. Of course there are health facilities most anywhere you might travel, but no one wants to be hospitalized away from home, and tour schedules are usually quite tight, with little time for seeking medical advice.
Well, this very thing happened earlier this month to Joe Newberry, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, who was on tour with fiddler April Verch up in Glens Falls, NY. He began to feel unwell on Friday, February 6, and he wisely took the counsel of his musical partner and headed straight for help.
“I knew something was wrong (coughing and profuse sweating), and April Verch said let’s go to the emergency room, which was just a couple of minutes away. They had a state-of-the-art cath lab, and they put in a stent right away.
Saved my life, because the main artery was completely blocked.”
Joe encourages all his road-trekking friends to never ignore major health signals like he was experiencing. Had he tried to soldier on and tough it out, we would almost surely have lost him up in New York. While he was at the hospital, the doctors informed him that he was having a heart attack right then.
By the 9th, he was heading back home to North Carolina, thanks to a friend willing to drive him, but his medical adventure wasn’t over yet. The beta blockers he was taking to help control his blood pressure caused his pressure to drop to dangerously low levels, as the body lowers blood pressure naturally when you are ill or suffering some such crisis. Hypertension medications lower it even more. Newberry headed to the hospital in Albany, where he was admitted to get that under control before finishing the trip.
A wise man, this Newberry fellow.
Back home now, and feeling much better, he offered high praise for his tour partner.
“I can’t say enough about April Verch. She was steady as a rock all throughout the ordeal.
And huge thanks to banjo player and friend Scott Hopkins for driving me and the rental car back to North Carolina from Albany.”
Joe will see his cardiologist on Thursday, and may find some lifestyle changes in his future to prevent more heart problems. But he says that all in all, he feels quite fortunate to be alive.
“Someone asked me the other day how I was feeling. I said, ‘Better. And lucky.'”
No doubt.
Another friend, Jane Rothfield, of Janie’s Jumpstart, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help Joe with medical expenses, and in recovering lost income from the tour cancellation. He has a great many friends in the music world, with nearly $30,000 in donations already pledged.
Stay healthy Joe!
