Cline Dion Changed Her Songs Due to Stiff-Person Syndrome Symptoms [Video]

When Céline Dion started experiencing the debilitating symptoms of what doctors would later understand to be rare autoimmune and neurological disorder stiff-person syndrome, she had to find a way to move forward.

“I went on stage and I started to sound more nasal,” the legendary music star recalled to Hoda Kotb in a NBC News interview previewed on the Today show on Tuesday, June 11. “I could say, ‘It’s a little cold starting’ or ‘It’s the third show in a row.’ ‘You’re working too hard.’ But the thing is, it was different. I started to feel like the body was more rigid.”

Dion was on her 2008 Taking Chances World Tour at the time. During a tour stop in Germany, her health issues came to a head. “I said to my assistants and to my people, ‘I don’t know if I can do the show,’ ” she recounted. “I was very, very, very scared. And then you panic, and …