Jon Bon Jovi says he’s still on the road to recovery after his vocal cord surgery: ‘It was very difficult’

Jon Bon Jovi says he’s still on the long road to recovery after undergoing surgery to mend a vocal cord injury.

The Grammy-winning Bon Jovi frontman confirmed that he had “major reconstructive surgery” on his vocal cords and reflected on the impact it has had on his life during a Pollstar Live panel on Wednesday and a Hulu panel for the Television Critics Association on Friday. The surgery was 19 months ago, PEOPLE reports.

“It’s been a difficult road, but I found a doctor in Philadelphia who did something called a medialization because one of my cords was literally atrophying,” he explained in video footage taken at the Pollstar event. “Sometimes people get nodules — that’s pretty commonplace. Sometimes you [get] deviated septums, and things that [people have] done take [their] toll on [their] cords. The only thing that’s ever been up my nose has been my finger.”

As a result, Bon Jovi said, “It was very difficult, this last decade, to contend with something that was out of my control.” He then lifted up both of his thumbs to highlight the differences between his vocal cords, saying “the strong one was really taking what was left of the weak one.”

The “Livin’ on a Prayer” singer explained that doctors were able to repair the problem by putting a plastic implant in. “For the last almost two years now, I’ve been in this rehab getting it back together,” he said. Now he’s “getting very close” to feeling like himself again.

“Friday night was my first live performance in two years,” he continued, referencing his set at the MusiCares Person of the Year award ceremony on Feb. 2. “New record’s done. So now I just want to get back to two and a half hours a night, four nights a week before I’m gonna go out there on the road for real. But I’m confident in my doctor.”

The musician — who stars in the band’s upcoming Hulu docuseries, Thank You, Goodnight — explained at a Television Critics Association press tour stop in Pasadena, Calif., on Friday that he often felt like “my craft was being taken from me” with the diagnosis, reports PEOPLE.

“I say in the film, and in the latter episodes, if I just had my tools back, the rest of it I can deal with,” he said about the injury. “I can write you a song. I can perform as well as anybody. But I need to get my tools back.”

Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story lands on Hulu on April 26.