This past Memorial Day, Andre “Doctor Dré” Brown, 56, fell down a flight of stairs while leaving his sister’s house and injured his right ankle, which became infected and led to an amputation below the leg and a prosthetic.
Brown said he initially ignored the injury and wrote it off as an embarrassing moment, but when he did go to the doctor they noticed an infection forming and advised him to go to the hospital.
The infection that was in my feet had started eating away at my bones. If I had waited another day, I’d have been septic, and I could’ve died.
Brown went through months of physical therapy, but he said he adapted to the prosthetic quickly.
To me, it came as natural as my foot being there once you understand what the procedure is.
It feels like I have no pain in my right leg. Before I went in, I was walking on pain and my doctor said to me, “You have such a high tolerance of pain, you won’t tell anybody if you’re in pain.” I said, “No, I would tell you, but I didn’t think it was that bad.” I can get on my knee. I do my exercises in the morning with it; I don’t have any kind of issues.
In 2007, Brown stepped on a carpet tack on his stairs and he treated the injury with Neosporin.
Weeks, then months later, I was getting sick all the time, only to find that I had an infection. That’s when I found out I had diabetes.
Since the Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, Brown has suffered multiple leg injuries and blindness, but he leans on his faith to keep him sane and optimistic despite his physical ailments.
I look at this as what it is: I’m an extremely fortunate person. I’m a triple threat: I’m blind. I’m an amputee. And I’m a diabetic. So I guess I’m superbad.
People keep asking me, “Are you depressed?” I say, “Depressed about what?” “Oh, look what’s going on with you.” I say, “Really? Well, if it was my time to go, I’ll be gone.”
When it’s my time to go and the master planner says, “Come home with me,” there’s no walking away from that. I’ve had the words come to me. The master planner said, “I need you here and I got such a path for you to walk. We’re gonna wear that leg out and you gonna get another one, Doctor Dré. You’re gonna be that person that everybody points to. How did he do it? What is he doing?” And I’m still learning. I don’t propose to know it all, but I know between my spirit, my faith and my hope, I’m in a very good place
Brown’s family has set up a GoFundMe page to help out with his medical expenses.
When people see that GoFundMe page, that’s because my family and I are sharing the massive burden of this and my blessing is that they’re there to assist and help me.
Brown is a hip-hop pioneer who introduced the world to the hip-hop culture.
We had a platform before there were widespread platforms. We were the CNN. We were the Good Morning America. We were The View. Where’s our Emmy for the work that we’ve done and the influence that still exists today? We were the ones who turned the culture on to the world.
Beyond “Yo! MTV Raps“, Brown has an illustrious DJ career, he was a Dj on New York radio stations Hot 97 and Power 105, and Los Angeles’ The Beat, and he is currently the host of the health and wellness show The Doctor’s Appointment on LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells Radio on Sirius XM.
Brown’s outlook on life and his relationship with “the master planner” is inspiring. Our thoughts and prayers are with Andre “Doctor Dré” Brown.
Source: Rolling Stone
