Wade Hayes revealed in 2011 that he was battling stage IV colon cancer, before successfully undergoing surgery and chemotherapy and being declared cancer-free in 2012. But now, the singer says he had to endure another extensive surgery after the cancer recurred last year, this time appearing in his lymph nodes.

“They opened me up from stem to stern, literally,” he reveals to Country Weekly. “They had to take a big part of my large intestine, most of my liver, part of my diaphragm out, lymph nodes, and I’ve had several small surgeries on my liver to get it repaired enough to work correctly. It was a bad deal. It was very serious. I’m probably being too brutally honest, but it’s the truth. I look like a baseball from all the scars I’ve got!”

The Oklahoma native says he has made several adjustments to his lifestyle to stay as healthy as possible.

“I was about 85 percent when I got this last bug,” he explains. “I had gotten really skinny when I was sick with chemotherapy and all that business. I was eating too lean. I couldn’t put any weight on, so I had to cheat a little bit on the diet. I get to have my favorite meal about once a month, which is a cheeseburger, but on the other days, no more red meat, no more dairy and light on the sweets. Maintaining a healthy diet and exercise are imperative at this point in my life, so I stay in a gym as much as I can and eat a lot of vegetables, fish, chicken and fruits. I bought a juicer, and I’m juicing.”

Hayes, who is maintaining a busy concert schedule while improving his health, says he hopes to share his story as much as possible, so others won't have to go through what he has endured over the past few years.

“The key to it is catching the disease early,” he acknowledges. “Colon cancer is one of the leading killers in the United States for men and women, but it’s also one of the most treatable if you catch it early enough. I ignored my symptoms, and just attributed them to something else until it was too late. I certainly don’t want that to happen to someone else.”

Hayes wrote a song, 'Is It Already Time?,' detailing his own journey with a potentially fatal illness. Download the single here, and see a list of all of his upcoming shows here.

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