Country music star Clay Walker finished the year strong and shared a motivational message with fans to celebrate it.
“2025 was an incredible yar, and I can’t wait for what 2026 has in store!” he wrote on Instagram.
It was a remarkable message from a remarkably tough guy, because Walker has long battled multiple sclerosis. And in an interview with People Magazine late last year he revealed that he has had a tough year dealing with the disease.
Walker, 56, made headlines in 2025 when he was forced to cancel a show in Hot Springs, Arkansas to undergo a procedure to help his battle against MS.
“At the beginning of the year, I noticed I was having a lot of difficulty with balance and walking, and it really started to worry me,” Walker told People. “I knew I had to do something.”
The outlet reported that Walker’s procedure was to implant a baclofen pump. People said that device delivers “the anti-spasticity medication baclofen directly into the spinal fluid.”
“The surgery gave me a lot of hope,” Walker told People. “But so far, you know, it’s not great. It hasn’t done what I wanted it to. Balance has been an issue lately.
“Am I walking perfect? No.” Walker added. “Am I walking better? Absolutely. I got on a treadmill the other day without a harness holding me up to keep me from falling, and I walked five minutes. That’s progress.”
While it’s not perfect, Walker admitted to People that when he was first diagnosed with the disease back in 1996, the outlook was “horrific.”
“I was told that I wouldn’t be around very long and that I’d be in a wheelchair and that I would be dead pretty quick because of the amount of lesions that I had on my spinal cord and brainstem and brain,” he said.
That has given Walker some amazing perspective.
“We turned everything upside down,” he told People. “We already won the battle, you know? We’ve got that to celebrate.”
Still, Walker told People that he is “going through a rough patch right now.”
“Does it bother me that people have to watch me struggle to get off stage?” Walker said. “Yes, I does. But my band is very in tune with me, and they know if I’m struggling or not. All it takes is a glance. They are always there, especially my bass player (Curt Walsh). I’m like, ‘Dude, if you see me falling, fall in front of me so I don’t get hurt.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.pennlive.com ’
