Dan Patrick reveals sobering health news on his show
Dan Patrick’s one of sports’ best-known and best-loved commentators, a guy who turns a wry but loving eye on every sport and every star. So when he announced on Thursday that he’d been suffering from a disease that’s debilitated both his mood and his much-lauded ability to think on his feet, it was both sobering and, in a way, hopeful.
“There’s something I wanted to bring up,” Patrick said, stopping the usually freewheeling show to go behind the scenes. “It’s had to do with my health over the past seven years. There are moments on this show when I have had memory loss, and I’ll tell you what it’s due to. There are times when I feel like my mind and my mouth are not working together. I think you’ve come to expect me to perform at a high level. I was just going to pull the curtain back because I don’t know where I’m headed over the next five months.”
Dan opened up about some personal health news on the show today. We love you DP. pic.twitter.com/wjnWFqm1zS
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) May 2, 2019
Patrick revealed that he has suffered from polymyalgia rheumatica, an intense joint pain, for the last seven years. “It’s like having the flu and you’re not nauseous,” he said.
To combat the disease, Patrick began taking the steroid Prednisone, which he described as a “wonderful and horrible” drug. Wonderful in that it addressed the pain and inflammation; terrible in that it wreaked havoc on the rest of Patrick’s life.
“I was depressed. I would have suicidal thoughts,” he said. “I would get emotional and cry for no reason.” He debated ending the Dan Patrick Show entirely. He also confessed to using Vicodin to help him get through a round of golf, and said he regularly self-medicated with alcohol in the evenings.
New treatment helped, but at a cost
Ultimately, though, he learned of a so-called “light chemo IV” treatment involving an hour of an IV injection once a month for 10 months. He’s halfway through it now, and while he’s seeing progress, he’s also noted there are drawbacks — specifically memory lapses and “brain fog.”
“I went to the store to buy one thing,” Patrick said. “I walked around for a half hour. I was going for salad dressing, and I came home with olives.” He said he was unable to remember Albert Pujols’ name during a segment, and entirely lost the memories of dinners the next day.
Memory lapses are terrifying enough, but when you’re running a three-hour show, they can be catastrophic. Patrick gave credit to his crew — the Danettes — for filling in around the edges and keeping him on-task. He’s got five more treatments, and he’s hopeful that this will address the pain he’s lived with for most of the last decade.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
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