For longtime fans, the lengthy recovery came as a surprise. Parton underwent kidney stone surgery a decade earlier in 2015 and was back filming her TV movie Coat of Many Colors within weeks.
This time, however, weeks turned into months as cancellations continued to pile up. It didn’t help that in October, sister Freida [Parton], 69, announced she’d been “up all night praying” and urged fans to do the same.
Dolly tried to allay growing worries, taking to social media to explain that “everybody thinks that I am sicker than I am.” She insisted she was “okay” but also revealed how deeply Carl’s illness and death had affected her well-being.
“Back when my husband Carl was very sick, that was for a long time, and then when he passed, I didn’t take care of myself…,” she explained. “When I got around to it, the doctor said we need to take care of this, we need to take care of that.”
Dolly acknowledged she’d been canceling appearances so she could remain close to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she was receiving “some treatments here and there.” She said she was neither “dying” nor “ready to die yet,” defiantly adding, “I don’t think God is through with me, and I ain’t done working.”