Nashville gospel singer reclaims her voice from thyroid cancer
Several Nashville-based acts were among the contenders at the 60th annual Grammy Awards, in genres ranging from country to blues to pop. But it might have been the gospel artists with the best stories to tell.
Natalie Grant reclaims her voice from cancer
NASHVILLE — Natalie Grant found the note scrawled in her 6-year-old daughter’s handwriting: “I am prayering for my mom & her canser.”
The popular Christian singer and her husband, music producer Bernie Herms, had struggled with how to tell their three daughters — Sadie, 6, and 10-year-old twins Grace and Isabella — that their mom likely had thyroid cancer. Grant didn’t want to scare the girls, but she knew her doctor was convinced she had the disease.
The couple sat their daughters down, and Grant gently explained it was possible she had cancer. But if she did, she said, the surgery was easy and she was going to recover.
“If you say the word cancer to a child, it doesn’t matter if you say there’s a 90 percent chance I don’t, they are living in the 10 percent,” Grant said. “I watched this situation grip all of them with complete fear. But I also watched it grip all of them with complete faith.”
Grant and Herms served as presenters last Sunday at the 60th Grammy Awards, held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. They were also nominated against each other in Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song — Grant for her song “Clean,” which she wrote alone. Herms was nominated as a songwriter on Casting Crowns’ “Oh My Soul.” (They lost out to Hillsong Worship’s “What a Beautiful Name.”)
“I’m pulling for her. I want her to get it so bad,” Herms said before the
“If you say the word cancer to a child, it doesn’t matter if you say there’s a 90 percent chance I don’t, they are living in the 10 percent. I watched this situation grip all of them with complete fear. But I also watched it grip all of them with complete faith.” NATALIE GRANT
awards show, looking at his wife adoringly in the couple’s expansive and immaculate Brentwood home, where a grand piano sat in the corner of the room and a contemporary glass chandelier dangled from the high ceiling.
On that September day when the radiologist said words to Grant like “suspicious,” “tumor” and “biopsy,” those material reflections of their success were meaningless. Grant was referred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Dr. James Netterville. Based on decades of experience, the veteran doctor recommended skipping the biopsy and having surgery to remove the tumors.
“Her entire career was on the line with a potential thyroidectomy,” Netterville said. “She’s far too young to observe this. I have one perfect daughter, and I told her if she were my perfect daughter, I would want to get the tumor out immediately.”
The day Grant scheduled the surgery, she was upset and called Herms who was in California producing an album for Josh Groban. Wanting to help, Groban reached out to a famous surgeon in Beverly Hills who agreed to see Grant. Upon hearing Netterville was treating her, the doctor declined, explaining that Netterville was the most skilled doctor to perform the procedure.
“As a husband, I’m thinking I’ll go to the ends of the Earth to get the best care for her possible,” Herms recalled. “When someone drops the C-word on you … it is stark, bold fear.”
Herms didn’t stop. He had other high-profile friends doing research to find the best physician. The answer was always the same: Netterville. While thyroid surgery is typically easy, Grant’s
case was highly complicated because of her career as a singer. Netterville explained that the thyroid gland is wrapped in four nerves — two that make the vocal cords move and two that change the pitch of the voice. If the surgery wasn’t done precisely, her voice could be irreparably damaged.
“The vast majority of people come out of surgery with subtle voice changes and will never know the difference,” Netterville said. “For professional singers, it could radically change their career.”
Thyroid cancer runs in Grant’s family. Her father had his thyroid removed in 2012 and following the procedure, his voice was never the same. Grant scheduled the surgery four weeks out. Her head spinning, she posted a video divulging her probable cancer diagnosis on social media and asked for prayers. Her clip went viral, being shared more than 8,000 times and garnering
more than 1 million views.
Grant had the surgery in October and, as predicted, Netterville was able to remove the tumors along with half of her thyroid. The tumors were sent to be tested for cancer, which was confirmed. But it was contained, and Netterville had been able to remove it all. Within two and a half weeks of the operation, Grant started practicing small vocal warm-ups with voice coach Diane Sheets, who had experience rehabbing singers following the surgery. Grant was terrified to even try, but when she did she watched Sheets’ eyes widen.
“She said, ‘Why does your voice sound so good?’ ” Grant recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t know, but it came out so much easier than I thought it was going to.’ From the get-go, we had this confidence all of a sudden.”
Grant slowly intensified her sessions with Sheets. When the singer experienced a tightening sensation in her neck, Sheets knew it was caused by scar tissue and performed laryngeal massage to keep it keep it from attaching.
The singer had a flicker of hope that she could perform on a previously planned Christmas tour, if only a couple of songs. The week of Thanksgiving, Herms sat down at the piano and Sheets encouraged Grant to try to sing her entire show — 11 songs. The tour was due to start in a week and the couple were hosting friends and family for the holidays. Herms played and as Grant started to sing, their loved ones streamed into the living room. She made it through every song at the top of her lungs.
“I started running around the room bawling my eyes out and dancing like a crazy person,” Grant said.
“We were screaming like little kids,” Herms added.
Grant was able to do the tour, and two weeks after she was declared clean of cancer, her song “Clean” earned the Grammy nomination. Grant had written the song for a friend who was struggling to deal with sexual abuse she had endured as a child. But hearing the words that she was clean of cancer gave the song a whole new meaning.
“I thought, ‘I’ll never sing that song in the same way,’ ” Grant recalled. “Then for that song to get nominated for a Grammy at the end of all of this is really, really awesome. If I won, I would probably pass out.”
About the same time, Grant was in Sadie’s room and found the note next to her bed. The little girl had crossed out the words “and her canser,” leaving the phrase “I am prayering for my mom.”
“It was like, ‘OK, check that one off the list,’ ” Grant said.