As per tabloid reports, Cookie passed away while Natalie was undergoing kidney transplant surgery this week.
Natalie Cole’s illness
Natalie, who lost both her kidneys while battling Hepatitis C from a past drug addiction and needed kidney dialysis three times a week, recently underwent a successful kidney transplant surgery in Los Angeles.
The Grammy Award winning daughter of R&B legend Nat ‘King’ Cole was at her dying sister’s bedside when she received a frantic call from her doctors saying a kidney was available from a young donor. They asked Natalie to immediately rush to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to receive life-saving transplant surgery, the New York Post reported. Cole’s older sister Cookie died while the Rhythm and Blues star was having her operation.
Sister passes away
"This is all so surreal, and it is devastating," Natalie's younger sister, Timolin, told New York Post's Page Six yesterday.
"Our sister Cookie hadn't been to a doctor in 30 years, and last week she went in and they found a cancerous spot on her lung. They had wanted to start chemo right away, but Cookie said no."
Timolin said Natalie initially refused to undergo the surgery because she wanted to comfort her ailing sister until her last breath.
According to Timolin, "Natalie was there with her at her bedside at 4 in the morning on Monday, and she got a phone call from her doctors that a kidney was ready for her.”
But, when doctors told her to have immediate transplant surgery, Natalie said, “What do you mean? I can't deal with that right now! I'm here with my dying sister!' And they said to her, 'No, ma'am. We've got to do it now. You've got to be at Cedars-Sinai in two hours.'"
"I told her, 'Natalie, this is God's gift, and you've got to go now. Cookie would want this for you,'" she continued.
Natalie, who was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2008 and had been on dialysis since September, has had successful kidney transplant surgery on Monday.
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