Dierks Bentley + More Stars Support Nashville Hitmaker’s GoFundMe After Devastating Illness
Dierks Bentley and Dan + Shay singer Shay Mooney are just two of the country music movers and shakers who have donated to a GoFundMe effort to support Nashville singer-songwriter Travis Meadows after a devastating illness that threatened both his voice and his life.
Meadows turned to YouTube on March 9 to reveal a recent heath ordeal that he says began when he was taken to the emergency room, where doctors decided to move up a scheduled back surgery. Complications and a loss of feeling in his arms caused them to focus on his neck, and it appeared that everything was going well after they replaced a disc in his neck until a nurse exclaimed that he was bleeding unexpectedly.
What followed was a nightmarish series of problems with Meadows' neck, tongue and throat.
“My tongue just quit working altogether," he states, and at one point, doctors feared his vocal cords had stopped working, too.
“My esophagus, for whatever reason, got mad at the blood clot that pulled away so it started aspirating,” he says. “I tried to swallow and it would shoot through it.”
Meadows was back home and recovering well enough to move from room to room at the time of his video, but his speaking voice was just beginning to return, and he was clearly struggling to even speak, much less resume his career as a singer-songwriter.
Meadows' cuts include the title song of Bentley's Riser album, as well as songs from Eric Church ("Knives of New Orleans"), Kenny Chesney ("Better Boat") and Jake Owen's hit, "What We Ain't Got." Bentley is one of the biggest contributors to a GoFundMe set up online to raise money for Meadows, giving $10,000 toward his care.
Wade Bowen, actress and singer Mary Steenburgen, Cody Johnson and his wife, Brandi, Shay Mooney, Caylee Hammack, label executive Joe Galante and more are among those who have also contributed, raising more than $80,000 toward a goal of $100,000 as of publication time on Saturday (March 20).
"Travis will require a lot of medical attention before he can get back to doing what he loves…playing music and writing the songs that we are dying to hear," the GoFundMe page, which references his hit with Bentley with the title 'Travis Meadows: A Fund(Riser)," states.
"Travis is an incredibly humble, kind and honest man. He would never ask for help which is another reason for us to rally together and do what we can to ease the stress during this difficult chapter," the description adds. "Even if you don't have a dollar to spare, a simple prayer or even sharing this fundraiser would be greatly appreciated."