Shania Twain is reflecting on the battle with Lyme disease that led to her 15-year hiatus from music. The 54-year-old country superstar was bitten by a tick in 2003. A lover of the great outdoors, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease after experiencing symptoms almost immediately.
What Shania didn't know was that the Lyme disease was responsible for her dysphonia, a vocal cord disorder. For several years, Shania was unable to sing. She underwent multiple open-throat surgeries. At its worst, Shania accepted the fact that she would never sing again.
Thankfully, the country songstress made a recovery. Although her voice isn't the same, she's learned manipulation techniques to achieve the sounds she wants.
It took her some time to accept her new voice as her own, but she's made it happen. In 2017, she made her return to music with the single "Life’s About to Get Good." She's currently in the midst of her second Las Vegas residency, Let's Go!
Shania Twain is reflecting on one of the most challenging times in her life. The 54-year-old songstress is in the midst of her second Las Vegas residency. Her road back to music after a 15-year hiatus wasn't an easy one, however.
For many years, fans weren't aware of why Shania had disappeared from the country music scene. During her 2017 return, she revealed that she'd suffered dysphonia as an effect of Lyme disease. Shania was bitten by a tick in 2003 while on tour.
Shania started exhibiting symptoms of Lyme disease almost immediately. "I was on tour, so I almost fell off the stage every night,” she told I Heart Radio. “I was very, very dizzy and didn't know what was going on. It's just one of those things you don't suspect.”
To get her voice back, Shania had to undergo a number of invasive surgeries. "I had to have an operation that was very intense and it's an open-throat operation, very different from a vocal cord operation," she explained to Extra.
"And I had to have two of them, so that was really, really, really tough and I survived that, meaning emotionally I survived, and am just ready to keep going."
While the physical recovery was tough in its own right, the emotional recovery was also a lot to manage. "When you're a singer and it's your voice, it is just a terrible, terrible feeling," Shania explained.
"It was a great, great loss, so I had to come to terms with losing the voice that I had and rediscovering my new one. It’s been a long, a really rewarding, journey."
Some of the damage done to Shania's vocal cords is permanent. There is also damage that will continue to worsen over time.
"What I've learned in the interim through therapy is how to manipulate my voice to get it to do what I want it to do or at least close enough that I … don't want to give up, so I’m willing, you know, you just gotta be willing and give in to change and you have to accept that you don't always have to be the same and that's what I have to do, and I'm embracing that."
Shania recently delved into her mental state throughout her battle during an interview with Sunday Today With Willie Geist, airing March 8.
"It was devastating," she said of the damage to her voice. "I was very, very sad about it to the point where I just — I felt I had no other choice but to accept it — and that I would never sing again."
Shania felt that during this time in her life she was "mourning for sure."
"I was mourning the expression of my voice," she said sadly. She didn't let that mourning overtake her fight, however, and she was able to get back onstage.
Shania was asked about what it was like to rediscover her voice and hear what she sounds like today for the first time.
"It was little by little because the surgery is invasive," she explained. Although her voice will never sound the same, she's embracing her new sound and having fun with it.
"It’s given me more room to play, to be honest," Shania noted. The gravelly sound she has now is a departure from what she's known for, but she's learned to enjoy the new things she can do thanks to intensive physical therapy. "I think it’s kind of sexy."
"I’m never gonna have my own voice again — I’m okay with that," Shania leveled. "I’ve found a new voice and I like it."
With that new voice, Shania is focused on the present. She's in the midst of her second Las Vegas residency, Let's Go!
"It would have killed me not to be able to ever sing again," Shania told People magazine. "I wasn’t going to let my life be over if I wasn’t going to be able to sing again, but I would have been very sad and I would have mourned that forever. But it is a great love of mine and a passion — that’s what got me back on stage again, because I could. Now I have more appreciation for it than ever."
