Bruce Springsteen found himself unsure if he’d ever be able to sing again amid his struggle with peptic ulcer disease last year.
The legendary rocker postponed stops on his world tour in September after announcing that he was receiving treatment for symptoms of the condition, telling fans he was “heartbroken” over the decision.
Peptic ulcer disease causes open sores to develop in the stomach lining or the top of the small intestine, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
“You sing with your diaphragm. My diaphragm was hurting so badly that when I went to make the effort to sing, it was killing me, you know?” the 74-year-old said in a recent interview on SiriusXM’s E Street Radio with Jim Rotolo.
“So, I literally couldn’t sing at all, you know, and that lasted for two or three months, along with just a myriad of other painful problems.”
The 20-time Grammy winner added that people reassured him the symptoms were “gonna go away” and that it was “gonna be OK,” but that he had his doubts.
“You’re thinking like, ‘Hey, am I gonna sing again?’” he said. “And you know, this is one of the things I love to do the best, the most, and right now I can’t do it.”
“It took a while for the doctors to say, ‘Oh no, you’re gonna be OK,’” he continued. “At first, nobody was quite saying that, which made me nervous, you know. And at the end of the day, I found some great doctors and they straightened me out, and I can’t do anything but thank them all.”
Bruce and the E Street Band are back on the road hitting a number of U.S. cities before heading off to Europe for shows starting in May.