The 'I'm Still Standing' hitmaker got seriously ill after surgery for prostate cancer back in 2017, where fluid was leaking from his lymph nodes.
He said: "I was incredibly lucky - although, I have to say, I didn't feel terribly lucky at the time. I lay awake all night, wondering if I was going to die. In the hospital, alone at the dead of night, I'd prayed: Please don't let me die, please let me see my kids again, please give me a little longer."
And the 72-year-old singer opened up about how it all came about, admitting he doesn't even remember some of what happened.
Writing in his memoir 'Me: Elton John', obtained by the Daily Mail newspaper : "I was taken to King Edward VII's Hospital in London, where I had a scan. I was told that my condition was so serious, the hospital didn't have the equipment to cope with it. I had to be moved to the London Clinic. My last memory is of hyperventilating while they were trying to find a vein to give me an injection ... By 2.30pm, I was on the operating table, having more lymphatic fluid drained - this time from my diaphragm. For two days afterwards, I was in intensive care. When I came round, they told me I'd contracted a major infection in South America, and that they were treating it with massive intravenous doses of antibiotics. But the fever came back. They took a sample of the infection ... it was much more serious than they'd first realised. There were MRI scans and God knows how many other procedures. The doctors told David I was 24 hours away from death. If the South American tour had gone on for another day that would have been it: brown bread.' After 11 days in hospital the father of two was allowed home and spent seven weeks 'recuperating, learning to walk again."
