Celine at the Olympics? not sure!

Celine went to the Grammys.

Celine went to play hockey.

Celine attended the Rolling Stones show in Vegas.

Celine appeared on the cover of the magazine French Vogue.

Céline, accompanied by René-Charles, Eddie and Nelson, attended a Cirque du Soleil show. Beatles lovein Vegas.

Backstage, Celine sang some musical notes I am alive.

So…it's possible that Celine will perform at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris.

I might crush your hopes, like Céline broke her ribs: I personally don't see how a star could pull off such a feat.

It all comes down to now

Every time Celine appeared in public in recent weeks, we all started to hope that she was going to make a big comeback, and that her “comeback” was imminent.

Then the rumor began to spread, shudder, shudder. What if she held the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Paris, as she did in Atlanta in 1996? I believed it too, it seemed entirely possible…until last Friday.

When I saw an excerpt from an interview Celine gave to NBC, in which she described the seriousness of the disabilities posed by her illness, I was assailed with skepticism.

It would take a miracle or a spectacular break for Celine to take the stage in front of not millions but billions of viewers.

Celine describes the effects of stiff person syndrome on her voice: “It was like when you talk like that (and you start speaking in a high-pitched voice), you can't go up or down. It turns into a spasm.”

Sorry to startle you, but how can a singer, no matter how talented, practice her art in such circumstances?

We have not yet measured the extent of the suffering that the singer is suffering from. But the shock was to hear him say: “It was like someone was choking you, as if someone was pushing your throat or pharynx in this way”! So we start to doubt.

“It could also be in the abdomen, in the spine, or in the ribs,” Celine said.

“If I point my feet, they'll stay in that position. (…) My hands will lock into a position where you can't open them. I had some broken ribs at one point, because sometimes, when it's really bad, you can break ribs too .

Celine went to the “Angelil School”. We don't get on stage if we're not “on top”, if we're not reaching 100% of our potential as artists.

The Celine we see in this short excerpt is fragile, weak, in a word… tough. These images show the terrifying development of the disease, as its claws tighten on the weakened body.

The power of dreaming

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I'd like more than to see Céline triumph at the Games Gala, in this lovely country, France, that has so often welcomed her with open arms. I am neither Nostradamus nor a bird of misfortune. I'm simply noticing that in the current situation, she has not yet become the Selene energy ball we once knew. But we still have the right to dream.