Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh recalls 'very dark' delusions while on ventilator for COVID-19
Mark Mothersbaugh, co-founder of the band Devo, is opening up about his harrowing battle with COVID-19.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times published Monday, Mothersbaugh, 70, recalled fighting for his life in the ICU after contracting the coronavirus, which left him on a ventilator and led him to experience delusions.
Mothersbaugh said he believes he caught the virus while working at his commercial music company, Mutato Musikain, in May. When he began experiencing symptoms, the musician brushed them off, thinking he was just overworked. After he took his temperature, however, he was surprised to see he had a fever of 103.
“A nurse came over the next morning and said, ‘You should be in ICU.' " Mothersbaugh recalled. "I said, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ She replied that she’d been a nurse for three decades: 'You need an ambulance right now.' "
The nurse saved his life, said Mothersbaugh's wife, Anita Greenspan, adding that her husband's health quickly took a turn for the worse.
"It went from, ‘I don’t feel good’ on Tuesday to an ambulance to Cedars(-Sinai hospital) on Saturday," she said. "It was terrifying."
While hospitalized, Mothersbaugh said he experienced some "very dark" delusions. In one of them, the musician said he believed he was in the hospital because someone had hit him on the head with a brick in downtown Los Angeles.
"I felt blood from being hit," Mothersbaugh said. "I was handcuffed to a parking deck downtown. I had this whole elaborate story of how these kids sold me to an ambulance company that then got some sort of a payment for delivering COVID patients to their ICUs. I totally believed it."
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In another delusion, Mothersbaugh said he wrote a brand new Devo album and organized a live show that the band performed through augmented reality in Hollywood.
The musician experienced delusions for more than two weeks, both on and off the ventilator. Through it all, Mothersbaugh said the support from his family was crucial, recalling one particular FaceTime call that came at "a time where I just felt exhausted."
"Like, ‘I could just float down this river right now, and it would be really peaceful. It wouldn’t be a freak-out. It wouldn’t be something I’d be scared of. I could really just do that.’ I really thought about it," he said. "And then it just happened that (Greenspan) called me, and she and the kids were on my phone, saying, ‘You’re getting out of there soon. Get off of that machine.’ I don’t know if everybody is lucky enough to have somebody do that for them."
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Mothersbaugh added he wants people to look out for their loved ones who are in the hospital battling COVID-19.
“If you have anyone that you know who’s in ICU with COVID, contact them and keep them in touch with the outside world, because it’s easy to lose track of where you are and why you are," he said. "I had no idea I was on a ventilator for 10 days. Time meant nothing."
Now, the musician said he's starting to get his health back on track.
“Before COVID, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m starting to feel about 50 now, and I’m 70,' " he said. "When I was in the hospital, I was feeling like I was about 90. And now I’m back to 70, and I’m trying to get back to 50. That’s my goal."
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mark Mothersbaugh had 'very dark' delusions during COVID-19 battle
