My Friend Michael by Cascio Frank

Author:Cascio, Frank [Cascio, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 2011-11-28T20:34:31+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HELPLESS

CHRISTMAS WAS NO MORE THAN A BRIEF RESPITE from the arduous process of making Invincible. Some of the difficulty stemmed from Michael’s perfectionism, and some from his passionate wish to be ever present in his kids’ lives. But a lot of it was the result of a steadily growing problem in Michael’s life: his reliance on prescription drugs. And as the year 2000 drew to a close, I was increasingly worried.

It hadn’t always been this way. When I’d first started working for him, I had called for doctors to attend to Michael because he was in physical pain. I had witnessed his treacherous fall on the bridge in Munich in 1999, and his chronic back problems had begun after that. It was evident that he was suffering. Various doctors prescribed a menu of pain medications: Vicodin, Percocet, Xanax, and so on. During this time, Michael also continued to be treated by his dermatologist, Dr. Klein, for his vitiligo. This treatment was itself intensely painful: it required that Michael endure having fifty needles stuck into his face, and for years—as far back as I could remember—the doctor had prescribed Demerol to sedate him during the procedure. Demerol was also the drug Michael had been given after the accident that had occurred during the filming of the Pepsi commercial, and it was the drug I had unwittingly seen doctors use to help him sleep during the Dangerous tour. It had all been a practical, reasonable plan for dealing with short-term pain. Or so it had seemed.

When we’d arrived at the town house on the Upper East Side during the summer of 1999, it had become clear to me that Michael’s drug use was escalating. There were times when he would ask me to bring in one doctor, and then, hours later, a second doctor, to give him more of the same medication the first one had administered. Michael had always warned me away from cocaine, heroin, pot—a warning that he himself followed. But he didn’t view conventional, FDA-approved drugs the same way he viewed illegal ones. He was searching for relief from chronic conditions. He was trying to get better. Different rules applied.

This situation became even more confusing at the town house when an anesthesiologist started showing up two or three times a week, some weeks, to help Michael sleep. I paid the man in cash, because all of Michael’s medical issues had to be kept from the public and their cost off the books. The doctor was perfectly straightforward with me.

“What I do,” he said, “is put Michael to sleep for a couple of hours. Then I ease him out of sleep.” It was the same treatment I had witnessed after Michael’s accident in Munich. The doctor would set up equipment and an IV in Michael’s room, and would stay with him, the door closed, for about four hours. He said that the treatment was risky, but he assured me that he knew what he was doing. He promised that he would never endanger Michael’s life.

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