Boston music scene veteran Corin Ashley is currently recovering in an area hospital after suffering a stroke. The incident happened Tuesday night during an exercise session, and the singer-songwriter posted last night on Facebook that he is expected to make a full recovery.
Ashley is perhaps best known as the former singer and bassist for ’60s-influenced mod rock band the Pills, who were active in the late ’90s and early 2000s, and in recent years has released two critically acclaimed solo records, 2006’s Songs From The Brill Bedroom and 2013’s New Lion Terraces, as well as a 2010 Abbey Road Studios session for Elefant Records.
With his permission, Vanyaland has reprinted the message he wrote to friends yesterday on his private Facebook page, which details his experience and outlines his anticipated recovery.
“First things first: I am OK and my prognosis is for a full recovery. I had a stroke Tuesday night and have been at Beth Israel the past few days. I was at the gym, on the elliptical machine, and my vision got blurry in one eye, so I sat down for a minute and then my left hand got really heavy and floaty at the same time.
“I was going to head home, but I found that my turn signal had taken on the feel of Jello and thought I should maybe get to a hospital instead. They were able stabilization me there and found a dissection in my carotid artery — basically a rip in the wall that was allowing blood to pool behind it.
“The next morning my symptoms had disappeared almost completely and there was some talk of a stent to open up that area (which scared me to death, honestly). I was feeling fine, but during a CT scan, I had a very bad reaction to an iodine based dye they injected into my IV and went into anaphylactic shock and my face swelled up and it was really, really bad.
“After that, I went downhill. I couldn’t control the fingers on my left hand and the left side off my face went into major droop.
“Since then, I have made some progress on the droopy face and my very good stroke team has been enthusiastic about that and how strong my arms and hands are except for the fingers. They showed me an MRI that showed exactly where the stroke was and explained what it controls.
“I don’t need surgery and they feel that with 4 to 6 weeks of physical therapy, I can get myself back to where I was. The muscles in my throat don’t seem to be under my control right now and the sounds coming out are not what I think they are going to sound like. I just spent 40 minutes trying to pick up paper clips with my left hand. Sweating and swearing at my fingers. It’s really weird.
“I know it’s going to be OK, but I am super open to hearing stroke success stories.
Everyone here at Vanyaland wishes Ashley a speedy and full. recovery. Listen to a few selections from his lengthy catalog, including a video clip from his Abbey Road session, below.