Emergency Surgery
While on tour with Underoath in 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Gillespie underwent emergency surgery due to an infected thumb. Instead of canceling shows, Underoath recruited Kenny Bozich, former drummer of The Almost to fill in on drums. Spencer Chamberlain and Timothy McTague shared duties in singing his vocal parts.
"Here is the story of my thumb. It’s a bit of a drama, I guess — one of those things where, in the end, hope and good prevail. I hope you like it. Last year, Underoath went on a headlining tour. I can’t tell you how stoked we were. It was long over due since it was the first time we had headlined off of our current record. Things were going incredible until about nine days into the trip when I got one of those routine drummer blisters and super glued it shut. I woke the next morning to find that I could barely pull on my pants, my thumb hurt so bad. It was pulsing and had a dark purple-ish hue. This kind of thing has happened before (not to sound tough or anything, but its true) so I just taped it up and played the show that night. I was in extreme pain for the whole the show, and afterwards I started to wonder why this hurt so bad. I mean, my thumb had never been hurt before to the point where it messed up my playing. I went to see the crowd paramedic, you know the little station beside the stage. She told me that it needed to be lanced (cut open and drained) and that she could do it, no problem. So she lanced it and I wrapped up my thumb, ate an In and Out burger and went to sleep. While we were driving to Vegas I woke up and my thumb was even more swollen than before. Also, there were red lines crawling up my arm . Immediately, I went to the emergency room, got a shot, an IV and some minor surgery. It was weird and I was a baby about it. After it was over, I had to go home for a few days, but I made it back just in time to record our live CD/DVD Survive Kaleidoscope."
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