On The Beat: Lincoln native Matthew Sweet now recovering from stroke at home (2025)

Matthew Sweet is now at his Omaha home, continuing the recovery from a debilitating stroke that has forever changed his life.

Forced to learn to walk and bathe again, strengthen his legs and work to regain function in his left arm at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Omaha, the singer/songwriter/bandleader/artist has had, he wrote in a social media/GoFundMe post, to acknowledge the lasting physical impact of the stroke— and its ramifications for his future.

“I’ve lived through the day where I realized I may never play guitar again,” he wrote. “I’ve lived through the day where I realized I may never draw a straight line again or enjoy the pastime that developed over just the last year of my life, painting with fountain pens and coloring with dip pens and ink.”

In the post, Sweet described the stroke that he suffered when checking into a Toronto hotel on Oct. 12:

“I was colder than I’ve ever been and an icy sweat came from every pore. Then I heard a deafening white noise in both my ears growing and growing and growing in volume, and my eyes started to scramble like eggs in a pan. 'Call me an ambulance,' I called out… Then I was in an ambulance and I heard a man yell, 'Sir you’ve had a stroke.' I didn’t know what it meant. It seemed unreal as much of my life has.”

After 10 days in the Toronto hospital, Sweet had to be flown to Omaha on a medical transportation aircraft, an “astronomically expensive” flight on a costly rehabilitation journey that is being paid for, in part, by a GoFundMe established for Sweet by his managers.

“My wife, Lisa, dutifully prepared for me to enter into Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Omaha,” he wrote. “It was at Madonna in Lincoln where my mother spent the last years of her life, so I knew it somewhat, but I found out so much more about it and the people who work there.”

On his release, Sweet was given the Madonna Spirit Award by his caregivers:

“'My God, I’m the least deserving ever of this award,' I thought to myself. Because I did not believe in myself, I did not understand what was happening and what these people were trying to do for me. ...

“I cried many times at my terrible fate and yet I also was so thankful for the fate I had in life, because it was a wonderful fate, and I was so lucky and found everything I wanted again and again and again,” He wrote. “Not too many people, I suppose, can say that. But you have taught me what care is. Caring about others, caring about what can be done, caring about what happens.”

Sweet’s post was intended to thank those caregivers, his management and, especially, the fans who have donated —as of this week $500,000— to the GoFundMe that will be used to cover the medical expenses and the costs of his ongoing rehab.

Sweet, a Lincoln native and Lincoln Southeast graduate, whose power pop masterpiece “Girlfriend” is widely seen as one of the best albums of the 1990s, said in the post that he hasn’t abandoned the music that has sustained him for decades.

“I will try to make music, I will try to,” he wrote. “I will try to make art. I will try to express myself, because that is all I have ever known and all that has ever brought me joy, throughout a life filled with more sadness than anyone could know what to do with, than any of us know what to do with, and that’s life."