Drake White used to think that he would never walk again after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
The 38-year-old country singer had a brain hemorrhage during a concert in the summer of 2019, which ultimately affected a portion of his left side.
Recalling the time he spent recuperating from the hemorrhage, White told PEOPLE, There were times that I didn’t feel like going on. I just wanted to quit.”
It took a few months for White to recover from an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) – an abnormal tangle of blood vessels connecting arteries and veins, which disrupts normal blood flow and oxygen circulation.
White’s wife Alex White played a key role during his recovery.
He said, “Alex was truly the person that, when I was mad and upset about not being able to walk and I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, she would be the one who would then take charge.”
White recalled, “She would say, ‘I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going to learn to walk again. You’re going to play again. You’re going to get back on stage. We’re going to have kids. You’re going to hold those kids over your head. That’s what’s going to happen.’”
Alex used to tape her leg to White’s ailing left leg during early days of recuperation so that her husband can feel it and walk.
White said, “She would just keep doing that until it registered in my brain that we were walking again. She helped me back on my feet and got me back on stage, along with the help of my mom and (Alex’s) mom and my aunt and so many other incredible women.”
“I feel really good. I feel like God’s got something massive on the other side, because why else would he put us through all that?” he added. “But as far as how I’m feeling, I just feel extremely lucky to be here.”
He said it would have been impossible to get here from where he was without the women in his life and to appreciate that, he recently released the song “Power of a Woman.”
White explained, “It doesn’t matter if it is the waitresses at my favorite greasy spoon Wendell Smith’s (restaurant) or the vice president of the United States, there’s just so many powerful women out there. I just wanted to glorify women in a song.” For the inspiring music video, White asked fans to share inspiring stories about the women in their life.
