I spoke with Bernard Heydorn last August and September. He was to interview Lightfoot just before he became ill but was not ready and the date was set for the following week. In the meantime Gord became ill and his interview has finally been done. It is an EXCLUSIVE and there's a wonderful pic on the front page and an old pic of Gord and a new one on Page 26. He looks wonderful!
Char
i am going back to bed now. I will sleep like I haven't in ages!
www.torontostar.com
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968793972154
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Apr. 19, 2003. 01:00 AM
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PETER POWER/TORONTO STAR
Legendary folksinger Gordon Lightfoot has bounced back after a rare illness ruptured an artery near his liver last fall. Today, he says he's not afraid of death anymore.
The comeback from death's door
Singer was in a coma for six weeks Now he's working on a new albumDoctors say his conditioning saved his life
Singer hop
BERNARD HEYDORN
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
A frail but determined Gordon Lightfoot is working on a new album and hopes to begin touring again in 18 months, the legendary singer told the Star this week in his first interview since falling seriously ill last September.
"I plan to fight my way back," said Lightfoot, 64, who now faces two more operations in the wake of the abdominal hemorrhage that nearly killed him.
"I probably won't get to play again until the fall of 2004," he added. "My goal is to get out there and do it again, whatever that takes.
"The most important things to me now are: Don't spin your wheels! Keep trying! Don't give up! There's always hope," he said.
Lightfoot, the Orillia-born folksinger whose international hits include "Sundown" and "If You Could Read My Mind," shocked the Canadian music world when he collapsed in pain in his dressing room before a charity show in his hometown on Sept. 7 last year.
He was airlifted to hospital in Hamilton, where he remained for three months. His family and friends kept a tight lid on information about his condition, revealing only that he had suffered internal bleeding from a blood vessel in his abdomen and that he was not fully conscious for at least two months. He walked out of the hospital in mid-December.
Lightfoot, who was candid, humble and engaging throughout the 75-minute interview, now says an artery ruptured near his liver as a result of a rare disorder, and that he was in a coma-like state for 6 1/2 weeks.
"On the second morning of my two-night stand (in Orillia), I felt a little off," the singer recounted in his Yonge St. office. "It got worse, with pain in my lower abdomen. By sound-check time at 4 p.m., my band was waiting for me on stage and I was on the floor of the dressing room.
"We didn't know what was happening. We went to emergency in Orillia, and there I became unconscious. I did not wake up for 6 1/2 weeks. I was out cold. It was around Halloween by the time I came to."
While he was unconscious, Lightfoot was operated on several times to stop the bleeding, and he doesn't remember any of it.
"It was peaceful in my sleep," Lightfoot said. "It was fine. If there was any post-operative pain, I didn't feel it."
When he was released from hospital, his doctors credited his excellent physical conditioning for saving his life. The singer had stopped drinking in 1982 and had started exercising.
While Lightfoot was in hospital, his band mates revealed that the singer ran 16 kilometres a week and worked out four times a week. The black T-shirt he wore to the interview this week revealed his wiry and muscular frame.
But the rare ailment has taken its toll, Lightfoot said frankly. "It has affected my voice and hearing, as well as my legs and feet. I also had to have a tracheotomy (an operation to create an air passage by cutting open the patient's throat and inserting a tube into the windpipe). I had a strong heart and good lungs, and that's why I'm sitting here.
"I'm on the road to recovery. I have two more operations scheduled — one in three weeks and the other in five months.
"Most people die from what happened to me."
Lightfoot admitted that he briefly contemplated retiring after waking up from his ordeal, "but that only lasted a minute or two. I thought, `No spinning wheels allowed! I never allowed spinning wheels in my life!'"
The singer, who has won 17 Juno awards and the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, as well as the Order of Canada in 1970, said he decided to talk candidly about what happened to him as a way of thanking fans for their support. The hospital in Hamilton received a deluge of best wishes and sympathy cards that, according to one nurse, was more than it had ever received before for any other patient.
Lightfoot also wanted to acknowledge the support of Elizabeth, his wife of 14 years, and his five children.
During the interview, he not only revealed that he was continuing to work on an album — the 20th of his career — that he had begun early in 2000 and for which he has written 23 songs, he also played recordings of a few of them during this interview.
He admitted any songs he writes from here on might have a new perspective. "In the past I had a fear of death," Lightfoot said. "I've lost that fear. I feel much better about accepting death now."
He was also sanguine about his place in history as a folksinger who helped define the music of the 1960s and '70s, and whose songs have been covered by Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley.
"It's not really important to me. It's even less important after you've been out for 6 1/2 weeks. You actually know how it feels not to be here. I learned that."
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Bernard Heydorn is an author, freelance writer and a former member of the Star's community editorial board. He can be e-mailed at
bheydo0172@rogers.com
TODAY - Interview with Gord-TORONTO STAR
Great news that he did this interview!!!!
