Stevie Nicks Said a Troubling Diagnosis Has Made Her Worry She’ll Lose a Hobby That is ‘as Important’ to Her as Music
Stevie Nicks recently revealed that a diagnosis has changed the way she approaches her creative life. At 76, Nicks remains highly creative and has made major plans for her artistic future. She explained that this is in part because she’s worried her condition might alter her life.
Stevie Nicks said a recent diagnosis has given her concern for her eyesight
Recently, Nicks began to notice problems with her vision. When she went to the doctor, they diagnosed her with wet macular degeneration, an eye disease that causes blurred vision or blind spots.
“I got diagnosed with this thing a year and a half ago called wet macular degeneration, and it is not a good thing,” Nicks told Rolling Stone, adding, “I was seeing all these colors, big things of purple. I was having, like, acid trips. And I’m going, ‘I’m not taking any acid, so I don’t understand what this is.’ Now, every six, seven, eight, nine weeks, I have to have a shot in each one of my eyes. That’s going to be for the rest of my life.”
Her mother had a similar condition. After watching her deal with it, Nicks said she realized how important it was to take advantage of her vision while she still has it.
“There’s dry macular degeneration, which my mom had. Her whole thing was doing the financial books for my dad, because she was a financial little wizard,” she said. “When she was about 80, it was really hard for her to see. In a way, I think it killed her because she was so brokenhearted that she could no longer do this. So when I got diagnosed with this, all of a sudden, I’m going like, ‘You know what? You need to finish these drawings, because what if you start to lose your sight?’ I haven’t drawn in years … but my drawings are as important to me as my songs.”
She described painting as one of her most cherished hobbies
While Nicks’ artwork is nowhere near as well known as her songwriting, she said she hopes to show her work to the public soon.
“I’m really proud of all the stuff that I’ve done. My drawings are very precious to me,” she said. “I will, maybe next year, do a big art show. I have so much poetry that just doesn’t make it to the piano. Or makes it to the piano and I realize that it’s really just not meant to be a song.”
Another hobby she greatly enjoys is painting her nails. She said she’s better at it than people might imagine.
“It’s a silly thing to say, but I do my own nails,” she said. “This is the first time they’ve been white in 20 years — I didn’t have time to put the gold on them before the last show. People say, ‘Who did your nails?’ And I go, ‘Me, because I’m the best manicurist in the world.’ Nobody does them as good as me, so why would I let anybody else do them?”
Stevie Nicks shared how another diagnosis has impacted her life
Years before Nicks learned she had wet macular degeneration, she discovered that Epstein-Barr was making her feel fatigued. While she said she is not currently experiencing symptoms, it exhausted her as she worked on her album Trouble in Shangri-La.
“Once you have [Epstein-Barr], you have it always,” she said, per the book Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams, and Rumours by Zoë Howe. “I don’t have the symptoms right now. If you get all depressed and worn out, it comes back. It has a lot to do with your state of mind.”
The virus causes symptoms like fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, fever, and inflammation of the throat.
