Nile Rodgers is a lucky guy

Getting a case of E. coli might’ve saved Nile Rodgers’ life. Or at least his kidney.

Last summer, when he and CHIC were on tour with Earth, Wind and Fire, a case of food poisoning landed Rodgers in the hospital. While there, the doctors ran some tests because Rodgers said he’d been suffering from some “fevers and tremors and thought he might have a bacterial infection,” according to a blog from the Wilmot Cancer Institute at the University of Rochester.

“After visiting a few different hospitals to figure out what was going on, his attorney recommended Strong (Memorial Hospital, in Rochester, NY),” the post continues.

That’s when the E. coli infection was confirmed, the result of eating contaminated food.

The tour was scheduled to make a stop in Toronto but Rodgers had to sit it out for treatment. He received an IV drip for two days.

In the meantime, the test came back: Rodgers had early-stage kidney cancer. He was given two options: surgery and six weeks’ recovery time or take a wait-and-see approach. Rodgers opted for surgery, which took place a few months ago.

All of this happened in relative silence and privacy and didn’t become public until recently, when he published a lengthy entry on his own blog.

Come to find out, he didn’t just have kidney cancer. He had two distinct types of cancer growing on his kidney.

His prognosis? “100% recovery. (You can start dancing, singing and cheering now!),” he wrote.

“I’m grateful for the people that I met, I’m grateful for the care that I got, but at the end of the day I guess if you were putting on a tier system, is the fact that I’m alive,” Rodgers says in a blog post announcing his health scare. “Had I not found this, who knows what could’ve happened.”

He details not just this cancer episode but his previous one in 2011.

“This situation has delayed some big plans for this year, but what will happen next year is beyond any of my wildest dreams,” he writes. “I’ll discuss that soon—in my next blog.

“After the last seven years of amazing life, I would never have believed that my body would be invaded by another cancer. CANCER REALLY? I’m done. 2018 here I come!”

Talk about lucky.