Travis Barker gave fans an update via social media on Friday (March 3) as he recovered from an operation on his broken ring finger.
“Thank you for all the love and prayers and understanding this week as I went into surgery,” the drummer wrote on Instagram alongside a slideshow of pictures from the hospital. “It was a hard decision to make but ultimately I couldn’t continue to play the drums without it. It was inevitable that my finger would have dislocated again without fixing the torn ligament surgically.
“So grateful for Dr. Shin and that my surgery was a success so that I can keep doing what I love,” he continued before promising, “See you guys on tour soon. (trigger warning: last photo is hard to look at).”
Blink-182‘s wildly anticipated world tour — marking the first time Barker, Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge have played live together since 2014 — was forced to be postponed due to the drummer’s injury, which happened during rehearsals early last month before he hurt it again two weeks later.
“This has been something we’ve been aiming to do for so long and we work so hard and we just kind of had one of those freak accidents that nobody saw coming,” DeLonge explained while making the announcement on Wednesday (March 1). “This is just so sad. These were the biggest shows we ever played. These are some of the most important places in the world for for a band this is like the pinnacle of our career was coming down and playing for you guys. So I really want you all to know, we are devastated and we plan to come back.”
The global trek was originally schedule to start in Latin America next week with shows booked in Tijuana, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Bogotà, Lima and elsewhere, but will now be pushed back until Barker has fully recuperated.
Check out Barker’s post-surgery message and photos here — and consider yourself warned before scrolling to the second pic.