Doctors recently told American comedian Adam Devine that he might be dying years after he was hit by a cement truck as a child. He was given a fatal six-year diagnosis last year, only a month before his new son was born.
The Pitch Perfect star has spent the last few years of his life in excruciating pain. He described it as a “nightmare” during Wednesday’s episode of the In Depth With Graham Besinger podcast. It started when he got spams “all over” and now says he can barely move.
“It hurts to sit for too long, it hurts to stand for too long, and it hurts to walk for too long,” he said.
Doctors won’t give the actor any clear answers. But at one point last year they told him he was on death’s door.
Devine was 11 when he tried to cross the road to meet friends on the other side of the road.
The minute he stepped outside with his bike, he was slammed to the ground by an oncoming cement truck.
“They say the reason I lived was the bike took the hit first,” he said. “I still slid 500 feet. Picked me up under the first two wheels and then spit me out.”
Devine broke everything from the waist down except for his right femur, and everything from his knees down was totally crushed. He also had a collapsed lung and was in a mentally induced coma for two weeks. He was in the hospital for two months and his dreams of being a baseball player were suddenly dashed.
Stuck in a wheelchair, he quickly learned the power of words. That’s how he realized he had a knack for comedy. He was also given unlimited free movie rentals from the local film store that pitied him, so he watched as many comedies as possible.
But after more than 25 surgeries he still hasn’t fully recovered.
The Modern Family actor may suffer from a rare autoimmune disorder called stiff-person syndrome (SPS), his doctors said, a condition which Celine Dion also suffers from.
Although some scientists say that death from SPS is rare, Devine said he was told that the average life expectancy is only six years. He learned all of this only shortly before his actress wife Chloe Bridges gave birth to their son Beau.
Devine said that he even visited the “guy who coined the phrase stiff-person syndrome,” but his journey was in vain. The doctor called the spasms “unexplainable” but that his recent pain most likely derives from his previous accident than any new condition.
Devine has his own theories. He thinks that overdoing workouts during the pandemic might have triggered his body’s painful reactions.
“I think I just got so tight and so tightly wound, and my body has all these things that are a little wonky and a little wrong with it, that I just sort of snapped,” he admitted.
But not all hope is lost. He’s now undergoing a stem cell treatment that he says is helping. In fact, he’s finally feeling “the best I’ve been now for the past three years.”
Devine currently stars on The Righteous Gemstones, which is now airing its final season on MAX.
