02/04/2021
Another very close friend fell victim to repeated unsuccessful back surgeries and a prescription to Oxycontin. It’s tragically ironic that Sara and I are dedicated to helping chiropractors save lives by offering patients alternatives to the surgery and drugs, yet we’ve seen too many friends lose their lives in pain and addicted to pain killers. Ray Zarro was my producer and AD for many years when I first started directing TV commercials. These were big budget shoots which came along with lots and lots of stress. Ad agency people and clients can really get under a director’s skin on set. Ray was awesome at covering my back so I could do my job. Anyone who knows me knows that I get very “passionate” when I’m working. If anything, or anyone, gets in the way I tend to get even more “passionate.” Ray was the same way so we were a very productive team. He was the perfect combination of a tough man with a big heart. And he was as honest as he was loyal. Our careers took different paths when he and his wife Julia founded their own company called ZED INK. Two awesome human beings who built a highly successful live event company that quickly became a leader in that industry. Their client rooster includes Microsoft and Xbox. They’ve worked with extraordinary people like Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Keanu Reeves, Jessica Alba and the list goes on. Ray and Julia have raised their daughter Olivia with enough confidence that she plans on taking over ZED INK – one of these days. She’s still in high school! Alright, clearly Ray Zarro was one of the great guys. That aside, no one deserves the horror of having an initial back surgery in 2012 that was followed by SEVEN more over the years until those procedures eventually ended his life. He was living on Oxycontin for years and was incapable of leaving his home for the last three years of his life – except, of course, to have more surgeries. During this 9-year period Ray’s overall health plummeted. He had several heart attacks that required open heart surgeries. His last major operation last week was need because the “rods” in his reconstructed spine “broke” and needed to be replaced. During this operation he had three heart attacks. He died. Getting the call from Julia was heartbreaking and then I began to get very pi**ed off. In 2012, we started working with chiropractors. I didn’t really know any well at that point. But I did meet with Ray when he first started to have back problems. I highly suggested he go the chiropractic route before going under the knife. We both got back to our busy lives and I didn’t keep on him to see a chiropractor. Clearly his medical doctors convinced him that chiropractic wasn’t an option. I don’t honestly know how seriously he considered going to a chiropractor or if he had and didn’t buy into the modality. I didn’t know exactly how bad it got until the call from Julia yesterday. Knowing what I now know about chiropractic I feel pretty damn bad that “perhaps” had I been more persuasive with getting Ray to a chiropractor he’d be alive and well. Wow. A tough pill has just been swallowed.
