A Survivor in So Many Ways
- Rock legend Tina Turner, 81, chronicled her rise to fame and abusive relationship with the late Ike Turner in her new documentary, Tina, but left out her more recent health struggles.
- The intestinal cancer survivor not only survived domestic abuse and cancer, but also a stroke, kidney failure and the death of her son.
- A leading expert tells SurvivorNet about the correlation between stress and cancer.
"It wasn't a good life. It was in some areas, but the goodness did not balance the bad,” Turner, 81, said in the flick, with a heartbreaking melancholy in her voice. “You don't like to pull out the old clothes, you know?" She is speaking in metaphors about her past, but we can’t help but conjure images of her iconic stage life in leather, sequins and fringe, those shapely legs, dancing through her private pain.
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In 1981, Turner, who was born Anna Mae Bullock, decided to finally go public with her abuse story in People magazine. "I lived 16 years with a man that I knew there was no way I could ever be happy with, but I felt like I had to stay there." She had met Ike while he was performing in St. Louis, Missouri where she grew up, and confessed that she was “in a trance” after witnessing him perform.
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"My ex-husband was a physically violent man. I went through basic torture," she told the publication. "I was living a life of death, I didn't exist. But I survived it, and when I walked, I walked, and I didn't look back."
The Grammy Award-winner, who is currently up for an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, was a "young, naive, country girl." She had promised Ike that she would never leave him.
"In those days, a promise was a promise," she said, after revealing horrifying details of not only physical abuse, but incomprehensible sexual abuse as well. Turner admitted that she had felt sorry for Ike after he beat her, and didn’t want to hurt him. "Maybe I was brainwashed." Turner was caught up in guilt and fear, sadly a similar story of many people living with domestic abuse.
Surviving Intestinal Cancer, a Stroke, and Kidney Disease
In 2018, Turner announced that she had beaten intestinal cancer. She had discovered the rare disease early and had part of her intestine removed in 2016. She also had kidney failure. The kidney pain was so unbearable at one point that she had admittedly considered assisted suicide. Luckily, Turner’s second marriage would wind up saving her, and she finally received the monumental support that she deserved, both emotionally and physically. Turner’s second husband, Erwin Bach, a Swiss record exec whom she first met in 1986 and married in 2013, is 15 years younger than the singer, and gave his wife the ultimate gift: one of his kidneys.
In Turner's recent book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, Turner credits Bach for teaching her how "to love without giving up who I am." She describes the difference in Bach's love compared to the earlier trauma that she endured with Ike Turner.
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"He shows me that true love doesn't require the dimming of my light so that he can shine. On the contrary, we are the light of each other's lives, and we want to shine as bright as we can, together," she wrote. "This example of love proves that you can always start again. Even after abuse, you can heal. Everyone deserves a chance to find true love."
"Falling in love with my husband, Erwin, was another exercise in leaving my comfort zone, of being open to the unexpected gifts that life has to offer," she said, noting that she had met Erwin at an airport in Germany.
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Turner also wrote about how dealing with illness has reminded her to seize the day. "Over the years I have summoned up my inner lion and overcome each health problem," Turner writes. "Illness has given me a greater appreciation for health and reminds me to live each day to its fullest." The warrior also suffered a stroke in 2013 right after marrying Bach in Switzerland, and suffered through excruciating heartbreak from losing her son Craig to suicide.
Losing a Son
"The stroke had delivered a powerful blow to my body… I would have to work with a physiotherapist to learn how to walk again," Turner told Oprah Winfrey (who also appeared in the documentary) in 2018. That same year Craig died at 59. "I'm still trying to find out why he did it. Maybe something from his childhood followed him through life and was still weighing on him, and he just couldn't handle it anymore. I don't know."
Craig Raymond Turner was Tina’s first child, whom she had with saxophonist Raymond Hill in 1958. Ike later adopted him after their 1962 marriage. They raised Craig together with Ike’s sons Ike Jr., now 63, and Michael, 62, whom Tina adopted. The couple had one child together, Ronnie, now 60.
The Power of Support
The power of a healthy relationship and support system can improve your health. For Turner to go from such an intensely disturbing battle with abuse to finding love again with a man who donated his kidney to her is a true testament to love and support.
Survivor Tiffany Dyba talks about how much of a difference that love and support played in overcoming her breast cancer diagnosis. "My husband is the best person on the entire planet. Because he doesn't treat me like I'm sick," Dyba tells SurvivorNet. "He just treats me like me, which is so important, because a lot of people treat me like I'm sick. He hasn't missed a beat. He said there's no other option but beating it. And I believe him every time."
‘We're in This Together’ Beating Cancer With Her Husband at Her Side
Stress and Cancer
Many people believe that stress causes cancer, which isn't exactly true from what doctors have found. But there is a correlation.
"There is no doubt that stress and your immune system affect your body and affect your body's chance of healing," Dr. Heather Yeo tells SurvivorNet. "Many patients are very anxious and worried that they cause their own cancer through stress or anxiety. I always tell patients, you can't look in the past and you certainly can't blame yourself."
Although many top experts including Dr. Yeo do not think that there is a direct correlation between stress and cancer. "That being said, stress certainly decreases your immune system and it may decrease your body's ability to fight certain cancers."
When there is an excess of stress hormones going on, "your body has a hard time recovering and cancer takes advantage of that."
Patients Do Better When They are Less Stressed
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