How pain med dependence took its toll on Grant and Chezzi Denyer
Thanks to coronavirus lockdowns, all the extra downtime has allowed celebs to kickstart their own podcasts.
But the most exciting of all has been Grant and Chezzi Denyer’s podcast titled, It’s All True?
The power couple use the platform to give an insight into their whirlwind life in an unfiltered, truthful way.
The first episode discussed Grant’s terrifying accident and the subsequent effect pain medication had on him – and the couple's marriage.
"Some of the things that have happened to us over the years are so out there, they don't seem true," Grant says at the beginning of the episode.
And he isn’t wrong.
The Family Feud host was almost paralysed after a shocking stunt which saw him jump seven cars in a monster truck went terribly wrong.
"I was jumping seven cars, landed," he recalls. "The suspension broke, I think. My back then broke, instantly. The pain shot up so fast, I was like, 'I'm in a lot of trouble here'."
"I was in such a bad way that none of the morphine was working and I could tell veteran [paramedic] was like, I've given enough to put an elephant down here."
Doctors believed Grant would never be able to walk again after he shattered his vertebra.
Despite the agonising pain and long road to recovery, Grant admits "the medication is the worst part, by far".
"We were warned by a friend who had recently gone through a broken back, on all the things that will start going on in our brain as you try and handle the medication – and HOLY HELL!"
"The moment you close your eyes, you can't tell the difference between your reality and your dream.
"When you wake up you can't tell what's real and what isn't."
Grant and Chezzi remembered the hallucinations from believing there were intruders in their home to being convinced Chezzi had flown to London and back one morning.
"I couldn't make a phone call without freaking him out, he'd hear voices," Chezzi recalls.
"We had so many drug psychosis episodes where Grant would kick me out of the house because I was an imposter dressed up as Chezzi.
"I'd be locked out of the house, a crying mess, and I couldn't call my family to tell them how bad it was.
"After three months it's a bit of a dependence, you can't tell what's pain and what is dependence at that point."
With Chezzi in charge of Grant's medication, she's baffled by those who manage to self-medicate.
"I would've thrown them down like MnMs [if I were self-medicating]," Grant admits in response.
But Chezzi admits that what was possibly one of the most difficult period in the couple’s relationship, is also the one that “connected us”.
"Our whole existence in that period was patient-and-nurse. We went everywhere together."
"As it turns out that is not healthy."
The couple then had to, years later, try to "untangle" that level of "co-dependence".
But, it's easy to see that they've come out stronger than ever.