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R&B singer Muni Long is opening up about undergoing a double lung transplant after being told she had just one week to live.
Long, 37, said she fell ill and was diagnosed with pneumonia while performing on Brandy and Monica’s The Boy Is Mine Tour last year.
“The road is tough, even when you are healthy. I should have never taken that tour, but there was so much going on in my life where I had to do it,” Long, who suffers from lupus, explained during a Tuesday, June 23, appearance on Good Morning America.
Long said she took a brief hiatus from the tour but later returned. That’s when she started to feel worse.
“I think maybe about five or six dates in … I couldn’t even get out of the bed to make my call time for the stage, and the last show, I just barely made it,” she shared. “I was only able to do two songs and my my team and my family were like, ‘You just need to come home and rest.’”
The “Hrs and Hrs” singer said she woke up in the hospital after Thanksgiving, where doctors gave her the news that her lungs needed to be replaced.
“I knew for a really long time that something was wrong … every day I’m like spitting in cups and coughing all the time,” she said, adding that she was “huffing and puffing like I just ran a marathon.”
“[The doctors were] like you need a transplant, and I’m like, ‘Well, it sounds like you guys have a time … like how long do I have to live?’ and they go, ‘A week.’ My jaw dropped. They’re kind of like, ‘Hey, this is not a joke. You need to make a choice. You can either go to hospice or you can get these lungs.’”
Long, who has a young son, said that she is now on the road to recovery, though she isn’t able to perform just yet.
“I look at my son and I think about, like, how much more life that I have to live, and I think just quality of life was first, like, I can’t sing if I’m not here,” she said.
“I [am] six months post-op. Tomorrow’s my last appointment for all the things,” Long continued. “[I’m] asymptomatic, no infections, none of that, and then I have my vocal checkup in August because I had to have vocal surgery as well.”
Long said she’s feeling “fabulous” and advised other people in a similar situation to take care of themselves.
“If there’s anybody watching this, I would say I think the bulk of my trauma came from just holding everything in, trying to shoulder everybody else’s problems, always being the strong friend, the one who has it all together,” she said. “I did not speak up for myself as I should [have]. Don’t put yourself on the back burner for everyone else. You need to focus on you. You need to pour into yourself. Don’t be afraid to say no. Rest if you need to.”
“I was really faced with my mortality, and I thought to myself, ‘Have I really served myself the way that I should? Have I really given to myself the way I give to others?’ And the answer was no,” Long added. “So this time around I’m definitely going to be a little bit more selfish. I’m gonna take care of myself first so that I can take care of everybody else.”
