Gone and Back

After a near-fatal aneurysm, Neil Young proves he's the ultimate rock'n'roll survivor.

Spots, Symptoms, and Scares

March 15, 2005, New York City: Neil Young is shaving in the bathroom of his hotel room when he notices something weird going on in his left eye. It's doubly odd because the revered singer and songwriter felt perfectly fine the night before, attending a raucous ceremony and inducting the Pretenders into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But now little shapes -- squiggles, spirals -- float on the top half of his eye. He blinks. Same thing. Squiggles, spirals. Seconds later, Young realizes the shapes he is seeing look more like pieces of broken glass.

"I closed my eyes; then I opened one eye and pushed on it, but this thing stayed right where it was," Young recalls. "So I thought, Okay, this is not my eye. This is my brain."

At first, the musician didn't feel too concerned. That was before he stepped out of the bathroom to tell his college-age daughter, Amber, that maybe she should call a doctor. "By then, everything was like mercury," Young says. "I had to sit down because the room wasn't easy to deal with. The left-hand side was getting bigger, the right-hand side was getting smaller, and I was not able to see much."

A bad case of eye floaters and a dizzy sensation weren't even the half of it. Before the next few weeks were over, Young would go through an emotional wringer, major surgery and gruesome, life-threatening complications. Known for his high, otherworldly voice and songs embraced by generations of rock fans ("Heart of Gold," "Old Man"), Young took his pain and fear and used it to do what he knows best: make music. He conjured a Grammy-nominated new album and a musical documentary that, Young says, "will take you on a journey about yourself."

On that late winter day a year ago, the first call went out to Rock Positano, a New York podiatrist. Young had seen him just the day before, complaining that his foot felt numb. Positano had noted that his patient's ankles weren't the same size, a symptom that can indicate a blood pressure problem. Young knew he had high blood pressure but, like many people with the condition, he had never bothered to treat it.

Now, as the podiatrist heard about Young's blurred vision, he told the singer to come to his office right away. By the time he arrived, Young's eyes were fine. No squiggles, no broken glass, no wobbly room. Still, Positano insisted that his patient get further tests.

Dr. Dexter Sun, a neurologist, ordered an MRI and a brain study. When the results came back, Sun called Young and his wife, Pegi, into his office and closed the door. "Everything in the pictures looks good," he explained, in a classic physician's under- statement, "except for one thing. You have an aneurysm in your brain."

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• Neil Young Bio on biography.com
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