In 2014 radio producer Coy Dean was at a promotional event in Greenville, North Carolina, when he had a stroke. The 48-year-old couldn’t move the left side of his body, and even as he started to recover, his joints were painful, especially his shoulder.
“I play ball, so I was used to pain, but this was a whole other type of pain,” Dean said. He couldn’t lift his left arm, and he was sleeping poorly because the pain would wake him every time he moved. His doctor prescribed painkillers, to which Dean says he became addicted, popping pills every 45 minutes. He once even broke the top of the bottle to get to the pills faster, he said.
