Peter Kramer/NBC(NEW YORK) — After revealing not long ago that she was incapacitated for months with Lyme disease, Avril Lagivne is now optimistic about the future.
“I believe that I will come out of this healthier and stronger than I was before,” she said on Thursday’s Good Morning America. “I’ve gained a lot of perspective on my life. I’ve never had so much down time in my life, so it’s been good in that sense and I’m really just choosing to look at the positives.”
Avril began feeling ill while on tour last April. Doctors told her it was just dehydration and exhaustion, but she said she knew it was more than that.
The singer called the search for her diagnosis “unacceptable” and “frustrating.”
“I went from doctor to doctor for about eight months until I found somebody that had the knowledge of Lyme disease and the experience of treating it,” Avril explained. “I actually knew I had it the whole time, probably since the summer, and was just up against a lot of doctors telling me, ‘You’re crazy.’ Some of them were like, ‘It doesn’t exist.'”
She added, “I was like, ‘But this is happening to me.'”
After receiving the diagnosis, which Avril believes she got from a tick bite last spring, the singer was bedridden for five months in her Ontario home.
Avril kept a low profile during her recovery, sending a tweet to a concerned fan on Twitter in December and then publicly revealing her Lyme disease in an interview that was published earlier this month in People magazine. Now the singer is back on the music scene with her song “Fly,” which will be featured during the 2015 Special Olympics World Games July 25-August 2 in Los Angeles.
“It’s just about inner strength and courage,” Avril said of the song, which she wrote a few years ago before partnering with the Special Olympics. “This song took on a whole new meaning for me during the time that I’ve been sick, which was pretty magical.”
Avril debuted the music video for “Fly” Thursday on GMA. “I wanted the athletes to be the stars of the video and, just like the message of the song, to show the world that they can overcome the challenges and that everyone is meant to shine,” she said.
The song is available now on iTunes and all the net proceeds of “Fly” will go to Special Olympics, according to Avril.
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