Longtime Mellencamp Guitarist Faced Losing Mobility — And The Music That Defines His Life (Video)

After months of worsening leg weakness left Mike Wanchic using a wheelchair, Mayo Clinic specialists discovered a rare spinal arteriovenous fistula and treated it with embolization.

For nearly 50 years, Mike Wanchic has stood on stage alongside heartland rock icon John Mellencamp, playing classics such as “Small Town” and “Jack & Diane.”

The guitarist and longtime band leader met Mellencamp in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1976, when Mellencamp was recording his first demos. By then, Mike already knew music was what he wanted to do with his life. Over the decades, it became far more than a career.

Watch: Mike Wanchic’s story

“Music is my destiny,” he says. “It’s what fulfills me.”

So when he began losing the ability to walk, he faced the possibility of losing a key piece of his identity too.

‘Looking pretty grim’

Mike first attributed new weakness and numbness in his legs to a long history of osteoarthritis, degenerating joints and spinal compression.

As his strength declined, he started using two canes. Then one day, his legs stopped working completely, and he collapsed in the parking lot of a recording studio.

“Three of my band members had to pick me up, put me in the car and take me to the hospital. That’s where this journey really began,” he says.

The timing couldn’t have been much worse, as the band had a nationwide summer tour approaching.

“I don’t think you can do this,” Mike remembers Mellencamp telling him. “I’ll pay you not to do it — because what happens if you go down after one show?”

Mike understood the concern, as he began to contemplate his future in a wheelchair.

“The whole thing was looking pretty grim,” he says.

A diagnosis that didn’t fit

Mike sought care close to home and was initially treated for transverse myelitis, an inflammatory disorder involving the spinal cord. He underwent high-dose steroid treatments and intravenous immunoglobulin intended to regulate his immune system.

“I got no results whatsoever,” he says, “which left me feeling like I was in the middle of a desert with no answers.”

By the time Mike came to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, his symptoms had been worsening for 10 months, and he needed a wheelchair to get around.

For Samantha Banks, M.D., a Mayo Clinic neurologist, important pieces of Mike’s story didn’t fit his diagnosis.

“It was a bit of a red flag, given his age and how chronic his symptoms were,” Dr. Banks says.

Transverse myelitis typically reaches its worst point within about three weeks. Mike had been declining for months. Treatments aimed at inflammation hadn’t helped, and his spinal fluid studies and other testing also didn’t point toward an inflammatory condition.

“At the end of it, she told me, ‘It’s not transverse myelitis. Something else is going on,'” he recalls.

Dr. Banks suspected a vascular problem.

Despite the extensive testing Mike had already done, she recommended repeating a spinal angiogram, an imaging test that shows the blood vessels supplying and draining the spinal cord.

Spinal vascular abnormalities are rare and can be difficult to detect, and the quality and interpretation of an angiogram can depend on the experience of the team performing it.

This time, the care team found what they were looking for.

Seeing the unseen: Finding a spinal fistula

Giuseppe Lanzino, M.D., a Mayo Clinic neurosurgeon, and his colleagues identified an abnormal connection between an artery and a vein near Mike’s spine: an arteriovenous fistula.

The abnormal connection was disrupting the normal flow of blood around his spinal cord, causing it to swell and malfunction.

Without treatment, Dr. Lanzino says, the damage can progress to paralysis, loss of sensation, and loss of bowel and bladder control. Once permanent spinal cord damage occurs, some function may never return.

Mike’s fistula was epidural, which the team determined could be treated through embolization. Using a tiny catheter, they navigated to the abnormal connection and injected a liquid embolic material — “a sort of glue,” as Dr. Lanzino explains it — to close it.

“Once it’s closed, then we can stop the progression of the disease,” he says.

After months of uncertainty, Mike was struck by how quickly he finally had an answer.

“Within 48 hours of being at Mayo, they had diagnosed it and fixed it,” he says.

1% every day

Stopping further damage by closing the fistula was only the beginning.

Mike spent another month in intensive neurological rehabilitation, working with rehabilitation specialists and physical and occupational therapists several times a day.

“It was serious work. Every time they came back, I thought, ‘Oh my God, here they are again,'” he says, laughing at the memory. “But they saved my life.”

Recovery after treatment of a spinal fistula varies from person to person, Dr. Lanzino says. Strength can continue improving for months, and the extent of recovery depends in part on how long the spinal cord was affected before treatment.

Mike measured his progress differently.

“One degree a day. One percent every day,” he says. “That’s all I want.”

There was also a deadline waiting for him: the tour.

“One of the doctors brought me an acoustic guitar, and I was so grateful,” he says. “I just kept practicing in bed, knowing that eventually I was going to be able to do this.”

Back to the stage

Over the summer, Mike joined Mellencamp for “Dancing Words,” the band’s first greatest hits tour. He didn’t miss one show.

For performances that stretched for more than two and a half hours, he kept a stool behind him so he could lean against it when he needed support. But night after night, Mike stood on stage and played.

For someone else, returning to work might have marked the end of a medical story. For Mike, being on stage carried a deeper meaning.

He has played music since he was 14. He talks about how musicians in the band anticipate one another — feeling where another guitarist is headed, sensing where the drummer will go next.

“We play like a living organism,” he says. “Who could leave that?”

The beat goes on

Mike is still recovering. He says he’s still building strength, still looking for that next 1%. But he is walking, working and playing.

“I can’t even imagine my life without my career and my music,” he says.

“Without Mayo, my career would be over — and to me, that’s not living.”