Shania Twain Reflects On How “Depressing And Devastating” It Was To Imagine She’d Never Sing Again After Lyme Disease Diagnosis
In a live interview with Lorraine on Thursday, 9, Shania Twain, 57, opened up about her challenge living with Lyme disease for several years.
Speaking to Lorraine in the studio, the Canadian singer who has been given the moniker “the Queen of Country Pop” revealed to the host that “it was quite depressing and devastating to imagine that I’d never sing again, even speaking has always been difficult with the Lyme disease.”
In 2003, the country-pop singer was diagnosed with Lyme disease after a tick bit her while horse-riding in the forest. For 15 years, the vocalist could not sing before she was diagnosed and underwent open-throat surgery in 2018.
“You start avoiding speaking on the phone, you start avoiding going to places with any ambient noise where you have to speak over the volume of others. It’s very debilitating,” she tells the host.
The singer, whose musical career dates back to the 1980s, had to take a 15-year break from music. Now returning with a new album, Queen of Me, she describes her comeback to music as a form of rehabilitation after her surgery.
Speaking to Irish Examiner, the legendary singer stated: “I have come out of a very, very challenging time of believing that I probably would not sing again, that I probably would not find a solution to the voice problem. Because the nerves to my vocal cords were damaged—both of them—and it’s irreparable.”
The Woman in Me hitmaker explained to Lorraine that “it took years to get to the bottom of what was affecting my voice. I would say probably a good seven years before a doctor was able to find out it was nerve damage to my vocal chords directly caused by Lyme disease.”
However, the Man! I Feel Like A Woman singer joyfully celebrates her “new body parts,” stating that her new album is her “celebration album” after her decade-and-the-half ordeal.
Although the singer took an unplanned hiatus after her 2002 album, Up!, in 2017, she released a fifth album, titled Now, containing four tracks. That was right before her 2018 surgery. Her latest, a “free-spirited” album, contains 12 tracks that celebrate the return of her voice and her return to music.
Leading a successful career in the 1980s and 1990s and suddenly taking an extended break has impacted the music legend’s trajectory. She notes that she could have gone farther with her career, but it’s “better now than never.”
