Many entertainers can tell you the best restaurants around the world. But Natalie Cole might be the only one who can steer you toward the best dialysis clinics.
The Grammy Award-winning singer spent eight months on dialysis after both her kidneys failed following aggressive chemotherapy to fight hepatitis C, which she says she developed after years of drug abuse and addictions.

Once doctors stabilized her condition through dialysis and put her on a transplant list, she was back on the road singing her classic mix of R&B, pop and jazz.

The only difference now was that wherever she played, she had to first make sure a dialysis clinic was available.

"I couldn’t believe that I was relegated to [dialysis] three times a week, 3 1/2 hours a day," she said with a sigh during a call from a Mississippi casino, where she was performing recently. "I didn’t want to sit around and feel sorry for myself. That wasn’t an option."

Based on her travels through Europe and Asia, Cole says virtually every dialysis clinic she visited measured up to American standards.

"There was an amazing [clinic] in Istanbul," she says, "and then I found out that there were 20 just like it. Some of their techniques may be different than ours, but in the end they get the job done, and that’s the most important thing."

For Cole, who rings out 2009 tonight on the stage of the Tropicana and then performs the first show of 2010 Friday night, the clock can’t strike midnight fast enough.

"I’ll be glad to see [2009] go," she says.

The year was an emotional rollercoaster for the 59-year-old daughter of the late and legendary crooner Nat "King" Cole. Last May, while sitting at the hospital bedside of her sister Cookie, who was dying of cancer, Cole was told a donor kidney was available. She then spent hours wrestling with the decision of whether to have the transplant, knowing if she did she probably would never see her sister again.

Cole’s family prevailed upon her to choose life, and the transplant went off without a hitch. During the surgery, Cookie Cole died.

Four months later, Cole went back to work Sept. 9 with a concert at the fabled Hollywood Bowl.

"It’s everywhere," she says of kidney disease. "There are people in dialysis all over the world. And there’s so much we don’t know about the kidney."

She’s joined the board of directors of UKRO — the University Kidney Research Organization — in an effort to raise awareness about the need for more research.

Throughout her illness, Cole says music helped her through the more difficult spots, which was primarily why she refused to stop working.

"As soon as I would start singing, I would feel happy. I would be like, ‘God, at least I have my voice.’ And that meant a lot to me."