Details of Tina Turner’s battle with multiple illnesses have surfaced after the singer’s death at the age of 83.
The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll on Wednesday succumbed to her fight with a long illness, her representative revealed. While the nature of the disease remains unclear, Turner previously fought a string of health complications including cancer, kidney disease, and a stroke.
By 2016, Tina’s kidneys were functioning at just less than 30 percent after she gave up on kidney disease medication that was caused by untreated hypertension the singer had been suffering from since the late 1970s.
In 2017, The Best hitmaker finally underwent a life-saving kidney transplant that prolonged her life but also came with side effects such as “dizziness, forgetfulness, anxiety, and the occasional bout of insane diarrhea.”
“I know that my medical adventure is far from over. There’s always another test, another doctor’s appointment or biopsy to get through,” the singer wrote in her 2017 memoir. “We’re both still here, closer than we ever imagined and that’s cause for celebration.”
In 2013 – before her kidney disease became unbearable and just months after she tied the knot with her second husband, Erwin Bach – Turner suffered a stroke that landed her in a hospital for almost two weeks and made her feel as if she was paralyzed.
“I woke up suddenly and in a panic. A lightning bolt struck my head and my right leg — at least that’s how it felt — and I had a funny sensation in my mouth that made it difficult for me to call out to Erwin for help. I suspected it wasn’t good, but it was worse than I ever imagined. I was having a stroke,” she explained in her memoir.
“I didn’t have the strength to get up. Terrified, I dragged myself over to a sofa, all the while thinking that I couldn’t imagine Tina Turner paralyzed.”
Just three years after her stroke, the singer was diagnosed with intestinal cancer and underwent surgery to have tumors removed from her intestines. The procedure, in return, further delayed Tina’s much-needed kidney transplant.
On top of all these medical complications, Tina also suffered from PTSD as a result of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband Ike Turner before the pair split up in 1978.
“It wasn’t a good life. The good did not balance the bad. I had an abusive life, there’s no other way to tell the story. It’s a reality. It’s a truth. That’s what you’ve got, so you have to accept it,” Tina previously admitted in a 2021 documentary called TINA.
While the exact cause of the singer’s death remains a mystery, Tina’s representative confirmed that she died at her home in Switzerland after a long illness.
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