I get why he did it, but playing 52 dates with a fractured hip is a pretty stupid thing to do. I suffer severe hip pain due to arthritis (replacement surgery in March) and I was out of pain meds for a day. This kind of pain is agonizing, and I can’t imagine playing one set, let alone a bunch.
Coincidentally I just got “upgraded” to Oxy. I don’t even get a buzz from the stuff. It does cut back my pain 60-70%, which isn’t perfect but I’ll take it.
I found Oxy way more addictive than Dilaudid so for the past 20 years I’ve refused to ever take it again. Same for MS Contin. They also bricked my intestines, which Dilaudid doesn’t do. I never got a buzz from any pain meds either, but like you it was of course for pain, not fun.
About fentanyl patches. When came off the ventilator and out of a coma, they had me on a fentanyl drip which over time they changed to the patches. They didn’t have a high enough dose of single patches so they had 3 big patches on my back. I had other things to worry about (clinging to life) so I’m glad I didn’t know about all the problems this drug would later cause. But I do remember once all the tubes and accesses were taken out and could take a real shower, I was this puny little mouse and the hotness of the shower would somehow make the body uptake the meds a lot faster and I’d near pass out from those patches.
I do wish they’d say what other meds caused the complications for Tom Petty. That’s an important complication we should all be aware of, besides the patches.
Tom Petty is not the first rock and roller to have passed away due to accidental drug toxicity from taking pain-relieving prescription opioids due to a bad hip. And it is very sad, and it should drive home the message that we need to take a very deep look at how we’re prescribing pain meds and monitoring their use.
I think these performers need to learn to take a break when they aren’t well enough to tour. Why push yourself that hard? For some of these guys, it can’t be the money (I’m sure Petty and Prince were doing alright financially).
Sure, use of pain medications should be monitored and doctors shouldn’t be handing them out like candy, but more care needs to be taken by patients as well. Break a hip? Take a lot of time off, rest, eat well. If necessary, get physical therapy. Take it easy once you’re working again. And at the very least, if you’re in your 50s or 60s, you don’t need to impress anyone with your stage moves.
I’ve read and heard musicians describe the rush of being on stage. The highest high they could ever experience. I don’t doubt that you could easily become addicted to it. And being on stage is the only way to experience it.
You’re illustrating one of the biggest issues in fighting this problem: shoe-horning black and white, right and wrong onto subjects that aren’t black and white, and are nuanced and difficult.
Let’s start with Tom Petty. Petty committed to a long tour. His hip is aching even at the start. Here’s the thing: when you’re 66, parts of you ache all the time. You don’t go run off to see a practitioner every time you’re hurting. You take some Aleve and hope that helps. And then in Petty’s case, he’s on the road and realizes his hip and the pain is getting excruciating. He also, however, is a guy who feels like he has obligations–to fans who have paid hundreds for single tickets to see him, to road crew and tour support folks who aren’t millionaires and who really need that income–if there’s anything about Tom Petty that shines through, it’s a sense of wanting to do right by the people he loves and likes.
And so doctors tell Petty he’s got a pretty serious hip problem, and that it isn’t getting any better, and he’s probably going to need to eventually have surgery. And Petty’s decision comes to “Can I manage this pain to get through this tour and then deal with whatever on my hip?” And his doctors, trying to help him make this happen start prescribing some pretty strong painkillers. And as his tour proceeds through a year, his hip worsens, maybe faster and more severely than was originally diagnosed, and Petty is given more meds by other docs.
And here’s how this can get bad. Maybe Petty knows how serious opioids are. He’s not a dummy, he’s a smart guy. And so what can happen in a lot of these cases is that someone doesn’t take the painkillers all the time, and they end up hoarding, and then a doctor asks or tells them to get rid of the other stuff and here’s some new stuff and Petty doesn’t do that and soon the hip is bothering him so badly that he’s mixing his own cocktail of pills just to deal…and also now likely because his body is starting to need and require the opioids.
And so he gets off tour, and discovers–per the news articles AFTER the tour–that he has a full crack in the hip now and will need a replacement most likely. And the pain is crazy. And oh, right, he’s also got badly clogged arteries, per the coroner’s report. And so shortly after that diagnosis, his heart decides it’s done, and that’s it.
…and then there’s Jay Bennett of Wilco. Jay starts realizing in his early forties that his hip is bothering him and getting worse. He aggravated it helping to carry gear one day, and in a fall from a stage. For him the pain is getting unbearable; he’s not sleeping, he’s trying to self-medicate with alcohol and Tylenol 3, which he knows is idiotic and he stops.
So finally he goes to see a doctor, who tells him he’ll need a hip replacement. Problem: Jay Bennett doesn’t have health insurance, and Wilco owes him money but are playing hardball and not paying. So Jay tells the doc that it’ll be a while until he can get some money together for a hip replacement, and what can be done in the meantime?
And the doc puts Jay on fentanyl, and Jay one night shortly after getting that scrip is suffering from the flu but takes his pain meds so he can sleep and he never wakes up.
I know it isn’t black and white but no matter how the events played out that led to his demise, ultimately, he made a choice. He isn’t the first casualty…he’s had plenty of examples to learn from. I would rather disappoint the fans and record label and live to rock another day than push myself to the brink of relying on pain killers to be able to function and put my health at risk, especially at middle age. People need to take better care of themselves.
“People need to take better care of themselves” and “Personal responsibility” are the attitudes that help underlie why opioid abuse is a massive and growing problem in our society.
I’d read that he had health insurance but the insurer refused to pay for the hip surgery, declaring it a pre-existing condition. And obviously he couldn’t afford it out of pocket.
So now he’s dead.
When I got my hip broken, I had to accept that my life had changed forever. There are a lot of things I’ll never be able to do. Standing for an hour without pain is one of them. So I plan my life around that. I don’t run around trying to live like I’m a normal person and then complain when it hurts.
I can’t help but notice that society has a lot more sympathy for these guys than it does for me. It’s assumed that I’m faking or exaggerating, and it’s probably my own fault that I got hurt anyway. If I get hooked on opiates, I’m the victim of a tragedy. If I live my in a way that keeps me off of opiates, I’m just lazy.
I understand. I have rheumatoid arthritis and deal with chronic pain every day. I have a permanent handicapped plate and when I park and get out of my car I’ve heard people make very cruel remarks. The thing is, I don’t look handicapped, its not like my pain is shooting off flashing lights or something. They simply do not understand what they personally can not see or feel. I have my pain under control generally but most physical activity will flare it up in short order, so anything that cuts down that activity helps. To be honest most of them are pissed because they are inconvenienced by having to walk further than me. Myself, I would rather park in the back of the lot and walk without pain but I do not have that option. I would gladly trade places with them if I could though.
From close family experience, I can definitely understand hip problems hurt like hell. Ditto the difficulties in managing pain and the problems with opiates. I have nothing but empathy for someone like Petty. I mean, in our culture, if you stop the tour because you are hurting, you get called a wimp; serious “pros” don’t let pain stop them! And if you don’t, well, stuff like this happens. It’s easy to say after the fact he (or anyone) should do this or that, but most folks just try to navigate life the best they can. Sometimes the dice just come up snake eyes.
Thing is, we have oldsters touring now. Petty was retirement age. Play some shows, sure, but do you need to commit to a long tour?
As I said upthread, I suffer extreme arthritis in my hip. My pain can be excruciating, and I can’t begin to imagine the pain Petty suffered. I do know from personal experience that on particularly bad days it can be very tempting to tell yourself “one more Morphine pill won’t kill me” and start self-medicating.
There are a couple of times I’ve given in to the temptation myself, but I do my best to fight it. For all his fame and wealth, Petty’s life must have really sucked, because that kind of pain can drain the joy from just about everything.
I hear ya. I’d say, no, they shouldn’t, but then… I’m just a teacher, not a rock star. And my audience is usually twenty people (though I’ve taught classes of 400 before). Still, there are days when being in the class room, when everything is going right, and the students are really in to it and with you, when you get a sort of “teacher’s high” that might be 1/1000th of what a rock star experiences on a stage before twenty thousand fans. Add to that the scads of money thrown at these aging rock acts, and yeah, I think I can see why they do it.
So people are abusing opioids because other people feel some people should take better care of themselves and not make potentially dangerous decisions like tour with a fractured hip?
I am not trying to be dismissive of the issue or say, “well it’s Tom Petty’s fault he’s dead”. It’s unfortunate that there are so many people addicted to or dependant on pain killers.
But I do feel there are some people who don’t do all they can to get better and instead just start popping pills left and right. I am not talking about someone with a chronic or degenerative disease or condition who has exhausted all other options and is left with only pain management. But even some of those people do things they are not supposed to and can avoid with the idea that they can just medicate themselves after.
I just know that if I have the flu, I am taking off work until I feel better. I will try to work from home if I can I between naps but I am not going to push myself to potentially make myself worse. To me, my well being is more important. I have a wife and daughter who depend on me… I am no good to them dead or hospitalized long term.
And I’m in my 40s. 66 year old rock star with a fractured hip? If my fans can’t understand why I cancelled my tour then I don’t want those people as fans.
Again, not directly blaming Petty, I’m sure he was in a lot of pain. I know what pain is like: after my open heart surgery, I had to be on pain killers for a week or more (7 years later and my ribs still feels sore at times), but I was not going to just pop some pills and go back to work the same week, I took enough time to fully recover.
He found out his hip was broken on the day he died, after the tour had concluded.
He knew his touring days were probably coming to a close and wanted to do one last big tour with his longtime bandmates/friends. Thought he could manage the pain issues well enough to make that happen.
It is also worth noting that Petty had a nasty heroin problem in the 1990s for a few years, and got himself clean.
On the one hand, if you want to say “He should’ve known, based on his previous addiction, just how serious opioids are,” that’s a tough point to argue. But on the other hand, if you’re Tom Petty’s doctor, you’d better be fully aware that your patient’s various joint and muscle pains likely stem from some physical, internal abuse that took place from an opioid addiction 20 years prior…and so maybe don’t prescribe opioids as a pain med. Patients do still listen to their doctors and take their word as gospel, and while that’s typically a very smart thing to do, it sounds as if in this case the doctor should’ve done a little more diligence with his patient’s history first.
(And this is purely a speculative guess made off of what I know of people who have taken a lot of drugs and gotten off of them and are living successful lives after the fact…but I can also see Tom Petty’s mindset of “I’ve had the real thing,” (re: opioids). “I can handle a fucking pill or two.” )