Celine Dion is giving fans an honest look at her life with stiff person syndrome.
In a new documentary, the famous singer experiences a scary medical crisis during a physical therapy session, and it’s all caught on camera.
In 2022, Dion revealed she had been diagnosed with stiff person syndrome. In the documentary, “I Am: Celine Dion,” she shares that she had been dealing with symptoms of this rare, progressive neurological disorder for 17 years.
“I need my instrument. And my instrument was not working. So we started to elevate the medicine,” Dion, 56, said after struggling to hit certain notes during her 2018 and 2019 tours.
Though she completed her 2018 tour, Dion had to postpone several dates from her 2019 tour due to the “common cold” before the pandemic shut it down.
Her tour resumed in 2022, but she had to keep canceling and rescheduling shows. It wasn’t until she announced her diagnosis that she officially canceled the rest of her appearances.
“I can’t lie anymore,” Dion says in the documentary. “From a sinus infection to an ear infection to whatever. Sometimes I would point my microphone toward the audience, and I would make them sing it. There are moments where I cheated and I tapped on the microphone like it was the microphone’s fault.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 05: Celine Dion performs live at Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time Hyde Park at Hyde Park on July 05, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Redferns)
In the documentary, there’s a part where Dion shows a very personal moment. She’s lying on a massage table doing exercises for her physical therapy when her foot suddenly starts to cramp. Soon after, her whole body tightens up and she can’t move or talk to the people around her.
The camera keeps recording as another person from her medical team rushes in with a nasal spray called benzodiazepine. They give it to Dion, who’s in so much pain that she’s crying, even though she can’t move. It’s really hard to watch this part of the video.
Once the spasms have subsided – they typically last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour – Dion is able to sit up and speak.
“Every time something like this happens, it makes me feel so embarrassed,” she says. “I don’t know how to express it, you know, to not have control over yourself.”
Her physical therapist speculates the attack was brought on by being “overstimulated” from an earlier singing session.
“If I can’t get stimulated by what I love, then I’m going to go on stage, and you’re going to put the pulse oximeter on me and turn me on my back?” she wonders.
Dion hopes that one day soon she’ll be able to return to the stage.
My Husband Wouldn’t Watch Our Newborn To Let Me Shower, So I Came Up With a Plan To Teach Him a Lesson
While celebrating a new life and transitioning into a new role, a mother found herself struggling to get a moment alone after she welcomed her daughter. A time that was meant to be exciting for her and her husband led to them having a big fight over their parenting roles.
In the whirlwind of joy and exhaustion in the early days of parenthood, a mother found herself longing for a mere moment of quietness and alone time. She took to Reddit to share her frustrations. She started off by explaining that she had only had her child for two weeks. Her daughter was strictly breastfeeding, but in addition to cluster feeding, she realized her daughter found comfort in being close to her.
A mother holding her new born | Source: Shutterstock
This meant that her new role allowed her little to no time alone. “I’ve showered once by myself since having her, and it only lasted long enough for me to soap up before she was crying and my husband was bringing her into the bathroom with me. I think I literally had all of 2-3 minutes,” she wrote.
On the contrary, she noticed her husband’s life had not changed. He still got to have long and uninterrupted showers every day but never understood why his showers frustrated his wife.
Each time she was in the shower, and the baby would cry, her husband would bring their newborn to her to calm her down. It made her angry that he did not even try to calm the baby down on his own, but his excuse was that the child loved showers, and seeing her cry hurt him deeply.
A mother with her baby | Source: Shutterstock
As sweet as his fears sounded, the Redditor still needed to find a way to get a full self-care routine without a baby being handed over to her. So, she decided to call in help. She asked her mother to watch her daughter as she showered. Her husband was not there when she reached out to her child’s grandmother, but when he arrived, he asked what his mother-in-law was doing at their house.
Surprisingly, he was angry at his wife’s decision to call her mother just to take a shower. “I could have watched her. Why would you do that?” he asked, to which the Redditor responded, “Every time you watch her while I shower, she ends up in here with me within 2 minutes of me being in here because you don’t even try to calm her down.”
A mother with her baby | Source: Shutterstock
Therefore, after five days of trying to shave her legs, she could not wait to enjoy the warm water hitting her body and relaxing her muscles. “I need to self-care,” the Redditor emphasized.
The original poster’s honest account of her experience as a new mother erupted in a chorus of voices from commenters sharing their own experiences and offering support. One commenter challenged the husband’s logic and suggested, “If, according to hubby, showers calm her down, why isn’t he taking her on his 30-60 minute showers?”
A mother looking stressed with her child | Source: Shutterstock
Another suggestion was for the OP to lock the door as a temporary solution and to teach her husband a lesson on respecting someone’s privacy. Another Reddit user said the husband made himself look bad in front of his mother-in-law, but it was time he realized that he could also parent his daughter without always running to his wife.
The discussion took a deeper dive into the dynamics of communication and support within the relationship. Commenters pointed out the absurdity that the husband had been more concerned about his wife calling her mother rather than making sure that his wife’s well-being was attended to. “You found a way around it. And now, even knowing how hard it’s been for you, he’s still not actually concerned about you; he’s just worried about how it looks to your mum,” remarked a commenter.
A man sitting next to a crib looking stressed | Source: Shutterstock
One mother said her husband once interrupted her hair appointment but she had a serious conversation with him and made him look back at the number of haircuts he had had since their baby arrived. She told him never to interrupt her alone time unless it was an emergency, so the commenter advised the OP to have the same stern conversation with her husband.
A couple fighting | Source: Shutterstock
Another commenter shared a personal story of how her husband had slacked at the beginning of their parenting journey and how she eventually found a way to work as a team. The mother said her baby was a bit fussy on the first night home and she would always take the lead and calm her down.
But after three days, she put on earplugs and requested her husband only wake her up when the baby needed a feed and let her partner take care of the baby during the night, which led to a more equitable parenting dynamic.
The commenter added that allocating responsibilities helped them both understand the difficulty and joy of caring for a newborn, but it also allowed them to foster empathy and understanding. “That night, my partner became an equal parent,” the commenter added.
Here is a story about a newborn who cried nonstop no matter what the parents did. But they eventually realized the answer to their child’s misery was in the crib.
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