Shania Twain says her Lyme disease battle was "devastating".
Shania Twain
The 'Man! I Feel Like a Woman!' hitmaker contracted the tick-borne illness in 2003, and was forced to undergo open-throat surgery after her voice was damaged by the effects of dysphonia as a result of the disease.
And now, Shania has said she "mourned" the loss of her voice, because she thought her disease would mean she'd never be able to sing again.
She said: "It was devastating... I felt I had no other choice but to just accept it - in that I would never sing again. I was mourning the expression of my voice."
After taking some time away from the spotlight to recover, Shania made her music comeback in 2017, complete with a new gravelly tone to her voice, which she now believes is "kinda sexy".
Speaking in a preview clip for an upcoming interview on 'Sunday Today', she added: "I'm never going to have my old voice again. I'm okay with that. I've found a new voice and I like it. [It's] kinda sexy."
Meanwhile, the 54-year-old singer recently spoke about needing to "rediscover" her voice following her series of invasive surgeries.
She explained: "I had to have an operation that was very intense and it's an open-throat operation, very different from a vocal cord operation. 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.
"When you're a singer and it's your voice, it is just a terrible, terrible feeling. 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."
Some of the vocal damage the 'From This Moment On' singer sustained is sadly permanent, but Shania insisted she isn't letting the uncertain future of her voice hold her back.
She said: "It's been a long, a really rewarding, journey. 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.
"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."
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