In a revealing new interview, Eric Church explains how a sudden health scare last year almost changed everything.
The country star opened up in a lengthy profile with Rolling Stone about an issue with his hand that appeared during the tail-end of his Holdin' My Own Tour last year. When he returned home after his tour wrapped up, things got worse. When he tried to text someone, he realized his left hand "was not responding like it should" and became red and swollen.
He found himself Googling "thrombosis of the arm" and realized the description matched his symptoms. After driving himself to the hospital, Church underwent an ultrasound where doctors discovered a blood clot in his chest.
"They took me into the ICU and I thought, 'OK, I'm gonna go to bed, get up in the morning and do this thing,'?" he explained. "But when I walk in the room, the surgical team is there and the [doctor's] in scrubs. He says, 'We're gonna go now.' That was really when it hit me. To them, I was going to die."
Church was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, caused by a birth defect that moved his top rib too close to his collarbone. Doctors removed the rib and Church spent weeks in physical therapy.
Although the "Desperate Man" singer says the health scare hasn't impacted his ability to use his arm, doctors did tell him he was very lucky that it was caught in time.
You can read the rest of the profile, in which Church discusses politics and the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting, at Rolling Stone.
