After a life-threatening infection, the Australian singer-songwriter has rebuilt her relationship with music – and her third album ‘sounds nothing like the last’ The illness that almost killed Gretta Ray announced itself slowly. First there were chills that had her inexplicably shivering under the doona. Then came gastrointestinal symptoms; next a splitting headache. Fatigue flattened her, keeping her in bed for days. But it was when the singer-songwriter woke up one morning with double vision that she knew something was really wrong. Ray went straight to hospital – and stayed there for six weeks. After a long and agonising slew of tests, she was diagnosed with infective endocarditis, a life-threatening infection of the heart that can cause a strange, gradual march of symptoms. Ray was put on an antibiotic drip “pretty much 24 hours a day”, which saved her life. But at just 26 years old, her age made her an outlier on the cardiology ward – and forced some big psychological reckonings. Continue reading...
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