In early September, Queen guitarist, Brian May, shared news that he had suffered a stroke that caused him to lose control over his arm.
Said Brian, in part, "The good news is that I can play guitar after the events of the last few days, and I say this because it was in some doubt because that little health hiccup that I mentioned happened about a week ago and what they called it was a minor stroke and all of a sudden, out of the blue, I didn’t have any control over this arm. So it was a little scary, I have to say."
Now, speaking with The Mirror, May's wife, Anita Dobson, reveals that Brian's condition has “stabilized”, and he is now back playing piano and guitar with the arm he lost movement in.
“He’s much better now, he’s stabilized now, which is brilliant,” says Anita. “I just hope we don’t have any more reoccurrences. He’s got the use of that arm, which was a bit of a challenge, back now. So, yeah, he’s good to go now. He’s playing the piano quite a lot in the house. He likes a lot of Beethoven. I love it - the piano in the house is really, just very relaxing.”
A week after the “health hiccup”, as he called it, he confirmed that he could play guitar again, after realizing he “did not have any control of one arm”. Now, Anita says Brian gave himself a bit of time before he attempted to play anything at all.
“He didn’t actually try until after he’d recovered quite a bit,” she says, speaking at the TRIC Christmas Lunch, where she was honoured as a Legend and given an award.
“And then he very slowly started to pick up an acoustic guitar and gradually just exercise the muscles. And it very quickly came back. He’s just retraining the messages from your brain to that arm, that it’s actually okay to do what it used to do. It was scary. And also being a genius for someone like that. His brain’s overloaded, that’s what it is. He’s too clever for his own good.”
Read more at The Mirror, and see Brian's initial video message below.
