Writer Drew Magary at Peace Never Knowing Why His Brain ‘Exploded’

Writer Drew Magary at Peace Never Knowing Why His Brain ‘Exploded’


Drew Magary could by no means know what triggered his traumatic mind damage — and he is OK with that. The creator and common author for Defector says he is fortunately residing his life as “barely broken items.”

In December 2018, Magary, then 42 and a author for Deadspin, collapsed in a hallway at a New York karaoke bar after internet hosting the location’s annual tongue-in-cheek awards ceremony. He’d suffered a mind hemorrhage, then fallen and fractured his cranium on a naked concrete ground. In his phrases, his mind “exploded.” In a painfully ironic twist, Magary had simply completed singing a karaoke model of Tom Petty’s “You Got Lucky.”

Click for extra from CNET’s ongoing collection Mysteries of the Brain. 

Despite his horrific fall, Magary certainly acquired fortunate. As he particulars in his shifting and sometimes humorous memoir, The Night the Lights Went Out, printed in 2021, his Deadspin co-workers moved shortly and saved his life. 

About 69 million folks worldwide endure a traumatic mind damage yearly. Yet TBIs nonetheless aren’t as well-known as strokes or different disabling occasions, main some consultants to dub them a “silent epidemic.” CNET’s ongoing collection Mysteries of the Brain seeks to deliver TBIs, and different mind afflictions, to gentle.

There’s nobody single explanation for TBIs — automobile crashes, falls, snowboarding accidents and extra may cause a head damage that will or could not immediately reveal itself. In January, Full House star Bob Saget was discovered lifeless in a Florida lodge room, with the reason for loss of life finally decided to be accidents from a fall.

Four hours to stay

Drew Magary survived a traumatic mind damage in 2018 and has accepted he could by no means know precisely what triggered it.

Penguin/Harmony Books

Although Magary was alone in a dim hallway when he fell, his Deadspin co-worker Jorge Corona in some way sensed a “thud” and appeared again to see Magary on the ground. Editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell argued vehemently with responding EMTs who thought Magary was drunk. She additionally pushed for the hospital to do a CT scan when docs have been attempting to ship Magary house. Lucky for him she did.

“The first CT scan confirmed two darkish spots on my mind: blood seeping by means of the cracks in my cranium and flooding my brainpan,” Magary writes in The Night the Lights Went Out. “I had suffered a subdural hematoma: a mind hemorrhage that was rising and shutting in to kill me.”

Magary’s a professional at hyperbole in his columns, splashing them with ALL CAPS wording and poking enjoyable at himself as typically as he does his beloved Minnesota Vikings. But he is not exaggerating right here.

Dr. John Caridi, the trauma surgeon who operated on Magary, advised him later: “If you are not taken to surgical procedure inside 4 hours of that hematoma, then you don’t have any probabilities of residing.”

Forever a thriller

Magary himself would not keep in mind something from the autumn. He wakened two weeks later in a hospital mattress, the place he’d been in a medically induced coma. So he relied on his journalistic abilities and interviewed the chums who witnessed the occasion.

Some of their recollections trace that there could have been one thing already stirring in Magary’s mind that triggered the hemorrhage. Greenwell remembers Magary asking for Advil earlier than the present. Colleague Victor Jeffreys says Magary was mendacity down on a sofa, quieter than his common self. But others say Magary was “completely” himself, and “in excessive power.” 

The accident’s trigger stays a chicken-or-egg thriller. Did a sudden mind hemorrhage trigger his fall, or did falling trigger the hemorrhage? Or did one thing felony happen in 10 seconds or much less, seen by nobody?

Magary’s pals say they tried to bathe him with the meals he requested, however he may seldom eat it. He’s proven right here within the hospital in December 2018.

Drew Magary

“The thought of an assault will not be inconceivable as a result of it did form of appear like anyone hit you actually arduous at the back of the pinnacle with one thing,” Caridi advised Magary for the ebook. “Every fiber of my being believes that this was not spontaneous. Something occurred.”

An rationalization is sophisticated as a result of Magary suffered accidents to each the back and front of his head.

“The reigning idea on the time was that the hallway was so slim that you simply had hit your head on the wall on the best way down whereas falling, then hit your head once more on the ground,” mentioned internist Dr. David Heller, Megan Greenwell’s husband, who helped rush Magary to the hospital.

Some thought Magary had an undiscovered situation, comparable to a mind tumor, that triggered him to fall, however surgical procedure did not discover something. He had no historical past of fainting. If he had been attacked, the wrongdoer would’ve needed to be “the quickest assailant on the planet, or merely the luckiest,” he writes.

“It’s a case the place each doable rationalization is in some way equally unlikely, and but one should be true,” Magary advised me. His ebook examines the assorted potentialities, however ultimately, he admits a trigger may by no means be recognized.

“It actually would not matter to me, as a result of it will not undo what occurred, nor will figuring out forestall it from occurring once more,” he advised me. “I’ve frankly moved on completely from the accident and am fortunately residing my life as barely broken items. I do not take into consideration the accident a lot anymore, which I feel is the more healthy approach to go. If I considered it always, the place would that get me? I would not be residing amicably with the thoughts and physique I at present have.”

Road to restoration

Magary is aware of he is residing the title of that Tom Petty tune he sang earlier than collapsing — he did get fortunate. But the street to the place he’s now, in 2022, wasn’t so simple as a tune lyric. Traumatic mind accidents aren’t like that.

TBIs may cause a variety of signs, in response to the Mayo Clinic, together with seizures, lack of reminiscence, melancholy and cognitive issues. Magary skilled most if not all of those.

“Everyone was so, so good. Real ‘restore your religion in humanity’ shit. I’ll by no means cease being grateful for that.”

Drew Magary

He misplaced 30 kilos within the hospital and remembers imagining all kinds of issues that weren’t true. He thought the hospital was on rails, like a prepare, always shuttling between New York, Boston and Los Angeles. He believed a celeb chef had been murdered on the karaoke bar and that he was a suspect. He thought hospital workers believed he was a Mexican special-forces officer. Two days after waking from his two-week coma, he tweeted that he’d handed out whereas drunk and choked on his personal blood, none of which was true. Magary’s spouse then tweeted out a correction, and took away his cellphone.

Magary would not shrink back from the uncooked elements of life with a traumatic mind damage in his ebook The Night the Lights Went Out. He discusses his choice to surrender alcohol, and to hunt remedy for the anger he skilled throughout his restoration.

Penguin/Harmony Books

Magary is now grateful for what his household and pals did for him — his ebook is a tribute to having an in depth circle of pals and a loving household who will first save your life, then information you thru the abyss of near-death. But with a blunt honesty that is acquainted to followers of his writing, he would not sugarcoat his personal angle. After waking from the coma, Magary was no Mister Rogers. He was indignant, loud and in ache, and he argued with medical workers and others, particularly after they insisted he attempt to stay upright, which was agony for him.

“My lack of gratitude was its personal exhausting thriller,” he writes. “Whatever darkness had enveloped me the evening of my hemorrhage was nonetheless there, poisoning my soul.”

Other mysteries unfolded. Magary donned a pair of headphones and claimed they have been damaged, not realizing but that the damage had made him deaf in a single ear. He suffered nausea and vertigo, and was comfy solely when mendacity flat, although docs advised him he wanted to sit down upright.

After two weeks out and in of the coma, and three extra weeks in bodily remedy, Magary was in a position to return to his Maryland house, the place he lives together with his spouse and three youngsters, now 10 to 16. His canine, Carter, shook with happiness and nestled into his lap. 

But there was no fast completely satisfied ending. At simply 42, Magary quickly had to make use of a walker to get round, and needed to bathe whereas sitting on a stool. Ten minutes with pals exhausted him. He was freezing on a regular basis. He’d broken his imaginative and prescient, and did workout routines to show his mind to work across the broken areas.

Dealing with deafness and extra

Most of all, he may now not hear out of his proper ear. The fracture had torn by means of his inside ear, and the harm was too in depth to heal. To add to the distress, his left ear was additionally broken. The restricted listening to that remained was simply fatigued, and sounds got here throughout as a lot too loud. Doctors fitted him with listening to aids (at over $2,000 per ear).

Magary’s different senses have been affected as effectively. It was now spring within the Washington, DC, space, and he found he could not odor the cherry blossoms and different flowers. The lack of odor, medically generally known as anosmia, meant Magary, an avid cook dinner and “smoke boy” (smoked-meat aficionado) who received an episode of the cooking sport present Chopped in 2015, may now not style issues correctly. Ice cream tasted like thickened water.

“Left by myself, I’d be in peril of unwittingly consuming leftover taco meat infested with botfly eggs,” he jokes in his ebook, remembering as soon as consuming spoiled feta cheese and never realizing it till his spouse was horrified by its odor.

The harm from his mind damage wasn’t all bodily. Magary grew to become unreasonably indignant together with his household. He quotes an unnerving statistic: According to the National Institutes of Health, half of all survivors of traumatic mind damage expertise temper swings and scientific melancholy, typically for all times.

“The mind itself is a wild and unsure beast,” he writes. “They won’t ever end studying concerning the mind, simply as we, as a species, won’t ever have outer area totally mapped out and explored.”

Seeking options

Magary knew he wanted assist. For the primary time in his life, he sought remedy to cope with anger points. It helped him grow to be calmer and extra tolerant, he writes, and he discovered to “recover from my very own ideas.”

He additionally gave up alcohol.

“I acquired blended messages from docs on booze, so quitting was in the end my choice, and I do not remorse it for a second,” Magary advised me. 

Additional assist got here within the type of a cochlear implant. Doctors connected a surgical system to his cochlear nerve that takes vibrations that attain the ear and interprets them as sound. In brief, the implant does what his injured inside ear can now not deal with. Magary acquired fortunate once more, twice: The FDA authorized the implant for single-sided deafness simply two weeks earlier than his scheduled surgical procedure, and his insurance coverage agreed to pay for it.

The cochlear implant labored. It even survived when Magary by chance dropped its sound processor, known as the Rondo, into the bathroom. (He acquired a brand new Rondo.)

Magary’s sense of style even slowly started to return. In pleasure, he sampled practically all the pieces in his kitchen, from sugar to fish sauce, solely getting among the flavors. (Unfortunately, the overly salty fish sauce was one among them.)

Magary right now

Magary’s accident was greater than three years in the past now, and he appears to be like again with some hard-earned perspective.

“I feel, and my spouse may disagree, that the most important distinction in me now’s that I’m way more mellow,” he advised me. “Sometimes that drifts over into being delinquent, however on the whole I’m far more chill than I used to be earlier than I acquired harm, and particularly earlier than I went into remedy AFTER I acquired harm.”

Magary, seen right here within the hospital, says he’ll perpetually be pleased about the readers who reached out to him when information of his accident unfold. He heard from many individuals whose lives additionally had been touched by traumatic mind accidents, and discovered what a big group he had entered.

Drew Magary

Even earlier than his accident, Magary was an web character, recognized for his brash takes, self-deprecating humor, and columns sprinkled with hilarious native commercials and poop tales. His 2015 “I Fought a Mirror” essay is without doubt one of the funniest issues I’ve ever learn. Readers considered him as a buddy, and when he disappeared from Deadspin after his damage, they fearful.

“I acquired so many emails and tweets wishing me effectively that, to today, I can barely course of all of it,” he advised me. “Everyone was so, so good. Real ‘restore your religion in humanity’ shit. I’ll by no means cease being grateful for that.”

Outside of some familiarity with NFL gamers struggling concussions, Magary knew nothing about traumatic mind accidents earlier than his personal accident. But afterward, those that’d gone by means of their very own experiences reached out.

“I feel I misunderstood how legion [traumatic brain injuries] are,” he mentioned. “Before, I type of envisioned TBIs as both NFL concussions, or strokes previous folks get after they’re about to die anyway. It’s not true. These accidents are far more numerous than that they usually afflict a a lot larger variety of folks.”

He notes that the identical factor goes for deafness, although such motion pictures as Sound of Metal and the Oscar-winning CODA are serving to deliver some cultural illustration.

“People ought to know the way widespread these afflictions are, as a result of then they’re going to be in a significantly better place to confront them after they get one or a liked one does,” Magary mentioned. “There are so many people. It’s all of us.”

Now, in 2022, Magary is way improved from these darkish days of 2018.

“My listening to is not 100%, nevertheless it’s ok to maintain me comfy just about wherever,” he says. “And if I ever get overwhelmed by noise, I understand how to take sound breaks and handle my situation in different methods. My odor is shot. My style remains to be broken, however I’ve adjusted to it to the diploma the place I do not sense the loss after I eat anymore.”

If he may change something, he’d take his listening to again.

“I’m so used to being deaf I do not even give it some thought anymore, however I would not say no to having two purposeful ears once more,” he advised me.

But simply as he cannot dwell on what precisely occurred in that darkish hallway, he cannot enable himself to obsess over the bodily modifications.

“In order to recuperate, I actually cannot miss what I’ve misplaced,” he advised me. “Otherwise I’d be bereft all day, as I used to be to start with.”

And he’s, in any case, nonetheless the man who fought a mirror in a division retailer and lived to joke about it, who produces a yearly hater’s information to the snootiest objects within the Williams-Sonoma catalog, and who previews every NFL crew’s season by telling followers why their crew sucks. In brief: His sly humor and self-deprecating jokes are nonetheless intact.

And yet another factor stays intact, too, he advised me.

“As for my look, I’m handsomer than ever.”

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