Nick Cannon Focuses On Kids After Health Scare

During his recent hospital stay for treatment of kidney failure, Nick Cannon got plenty of support from his wife, Mariah Carey — he referred to her as his "angel" during our interview — but his twins Moroccan and Monroe were also a key part of the entertainer's decision to adapt a healthier lifestyle. During his first day back at the office on Tuesday, Cannon told that his health scare intensified the way he feels about his family.

"Right now my kids are everything — they're always going to be everything, but when something like this happens to you, everything else is shut out and you're just focused on them," he said. "So every second you just notice so many things ... it just makes it so much more poignant. I love everything that they do and just want to be a part of everything."

Cannon, who has temporarily adapted a strict renal diet, said that his time in the hospital made all of the important things very clear. "There's a second where you're thinking, 'What if I'm not able to instill the things I want to instill into my children?' It just makes you think, like, 'I need to give them everything I could possibly give them right now,' and obviously it starts with love."

The radio and stand-up comedy host was hospitalized during a vacation with his family in Aspen, Colorado, after experiencing severe pains in his lower back. Doctors initially suspected kidney stones as the culprit, before more tests showed that his kidneys were shutting down due to an overdose of protein, medication he was taking and a lack of proper sustenance.

"I always considered myself as someone who was in great shape, but I was doing too much [to my body] so my immune system got confused and just started attacking my kidneys," Cannon told. "You look at my Twitter picture and I look like I'm in shape, but I was putting the wrong stuff into my body, speeding all the time, not sleeping and eating properly. It's all about taking time and really caring about yourself and how you fuel yourself."