The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood Shares That He Had a ‘Touch’ of Lung Cancer

“I said go for it,” Wood said. “And then he came back with the news that I had this supernova burning away on my left lung. And to be totally honest, I wasn’t surprised. I knew I hadn’t had a chest X-ray since I went into Cottonwood (a rehab clinic in Tucson, Arizona) in 2002. He asked me what I wanted to do and my answer was simple, ‘Just get it out of me.’”

Before the cancerous part of his lung could be removed, his doctors had to make sure the cancer had not spread.

“I made up my mind that if it had spread, I wasn’t going to go through chemo, I wasn’t going to use that bayonet in my body,” he admits. “It’s more I wasn’t going to lose my hair. This hair wasn’t going anywhere.”

Fortunately, it had not spread, and Wood told the doctors he was ready for the five-hour surgery to remove part of his lung.

“Just before I closed my eyes for the operation, I looked at the doctor and said, ‘Let battle commence,’” he recalled.

Wood had thoughts of something like this happening after he had finally given up smoking. “How can I get through 50 years of chain-smoking, and all the rest of my bad habits, without something going on in there?” he said, adding that he is “bloody lucky,” it was just this. “Someone up there must like me.”