I may never play guitar again

Matthew Sweet has shared a health update following his stroke, saying that he “may never play guitar again”.

In October, it was reported that a GoFundMe campaign was launched after singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet suffered a “debilitating” stroke while on tour.

The alt-rock musician was out on tour with Hanson that month when he suffered a major stroke, Sweet’s manager Russell Carter revealed in a statement to Entertainment Weekly.

Now, Sweet has offered an update on his GoFundMe page, describing the sensations he felt when the incident happened.

“I was colder than I’ve ever been and an icy sweat came from every pore,” he wrote. “Then I heard a deafening white noise in both my ears growing, and growing and growing in volume, and my eyes started to scramble like eggs in a pan.”

“I was in an ambulance and I heard a man yell, ‘Sir you’ve had a stroke.’ I didn’t know what it meant. It seemed unreal as much of my life has.”

Sweet continued: “It’s hard to start here without saying how touched and humbled I am by the success of my GoFundMe page. My future would be gone without it. I stand a chance it is as simple as that.”

He revealed that, after weeks of hospitalisation, he was discharged early this month.

“As I learned to walk, bathe, strengthen my legs, learn what hard work really was, I cried many times at my terrible fate and yet I also was so thankful for the fate I had in life, because it was a wonderful fate, and I was so lucky and found everything I wanted again and again and again,” he wrote.

He later added that, one day, he “realized I may never play guitar again”, nor “draw a straight line again” or create art.

“I understand now what it means to need to reinvent oneself, when the self you knew before is gone, you have no other choice, you either quit or you keep going and so I feel I must keep going, and I feel a great burden to do so with such incredible support that you, many of whom I do not know, have given me.”

He wrote that he “will try to make music” and to “express myself” – “that is all I have ever known and all that has ever brought me joy, throughout a life filled with more sadness than anyone could know what to do with, than any of us know what to do with, and that’s life.”

At the time of publishing, over US$500,000 has been raised of the $400,000 target amount. Among the 5,000 donors are Judd Apatow, John Mayer, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, Ken Jennings, Ben Gibbard and Jon Cryer.