Shania Twain Reveals Details of ‘Tough’ Operation After Lyme Disease Diagnosis

When Shania Twain was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2003, she had no idea what a lengthy and arduous battle she would have to fight to regain her health. The singer, who lost her voice due to dysphonia, a side effect of Lyme Disease, had to have multiple surgeries to repair the damage so Twain could find her voice again.

“I had to have an operation that was very intense and it’s an open-throat operation, very different from a vocal cord operation,” Twain told Extra. “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.”

Twain admits she was initially very discouraged by her health struggles, and unsure if she would ever even sing again.

“When you’re a singer and it’s your voice, it is just a terrible, terrible feeling,” Twain admitted. “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.”

Still, the 53-year-old acknowledges that her voice will never be the same, and that singing is much harder than it used to be.

“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,” Twain said. “I don’t want to give up, so I’m willing – 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.”

Embracing that, indeed. Twain just announced a new Las Vegas residency, Let’s Go!, kicking off in December. But Vegas might not be the only new venture Twain has in the works. After appearing in the film Trading Paint opposite John Travolta, Twain is also appearing next year in a new faith-based movie, I Still Believe, based on singer Jeremy Camp’s life and career, and hints there might be more roles for her in the future.

“I want to do more acting, because when you’re acting, you’re not yourself, and it’s kind of awesome to step out of yourself and be someone else just for a minute,” Twain told PopCulture.com. “I could see myself doing more of that. I’ve already been skydiving, so I don’t think I’m going to jump out of a plane again. [Laughs] I’ve crossed that one off my list.”

Photo Credit: Getty images/Nicholas Hunt