Christy Dignam has given a poignant interview as he receives palliative care for cancer, reflecting: “I’m on the conveyor belt up to heaven.”
The Aslan frontman was diagnosed with two rare blood cancers – amyloidosis and multiple myeloma – over 10 years ago. Dubliner Christy, 62, spent some time in a hospice after his family released a statement in January revealing he was receiving palliative care.
But he is now being cared for at his home in Finglas by his wife Kathryn, daughter Kiera and family. Brave Christy opened up to Ryan Tubridy in an emotional interview which will air on RTE Radio One tomorrow.
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In the audio, Tubridy reveals how wife Kathryn referred to Christy as Lazarus, as he notes how most people admitted to a hospice for palliative care “rarely come home”. Christy says: “I thought this is it, this is the conveyor belt up to heaven.
"I’ll go in here and this will be the end of it. The reason I was staying there... Kathyrn has 10 brothers and sisters, I have eight brothers and sisters.
“So they would be all coming up to visit you and in one week I had conjunctivitis, a chest infection, a stomach bug... So they were bringing all those germs into the house.
"You have to stay up and entertain them and I was just exhausted with it. Going into respite was to just give me time to think as to what’s the best way forward, so now we limit who comes into the house.”
The Crazy World singer has a medical bed set up in the TV room with a view of the garden on one side and the street on the other. Christy reveals how the reality of his illness hit him one day while sitting watching the world go by outside the window.
He said: “I was looking out the window, and this fella walked by the door, just walks by and I just looked and said ‘you will never do that again, you will never walk’.
“That sent me into a spiral and I started thinking about all the things I want to do again. It’s like you are heading into the abyss.”
Asked to reflect on his life he added: “Just fear, nobody wants to die. When I first got diagnosed I remember praying ‘Please just give me ten more years’.
“And them 10 years are up now and you’re saying ‘okay, I know I only asked for 10 but you couldn’t throw another ten in could you?’ My friend is a Sioux Indian and they believe that each life is like a lesson to be learnt.
“The more lessons to be learned the nearer you get to Nirvana until you become part of God. I like that kind of philosophy, especially now that I am coming towards the end.”
He continued: I wouldn’t be hugely religious... that logic [heaven] won’t work with me. I believe I’m spiritual, I believe we are all spiritual beings in some sense or other.
“When I was going to NA [Narcotics Anonymous] there was a saying ‘Religion is for people who want to go to heaven, spirituality is for people who have been to hell’. I really identified with that because when you had rough times, the contrast is so vast that it helps you see the world in a more focused way.”
Christy recalled how he refused to believe he had cancer when he was first given the devastating diagnosis at Beaumont Hospital. He said: “I kept getting these chest infections and they kept giving me antibiotics, but the antibiotics weren’t working.
“They did a lot of tests... a couple of biopsies. So the doctor came in and said ‘It might be bad news.
"There are two cancers it resembles’, he said ‘Amyloidosisis one of them and multiple myeloma is the other, it could be either.’ The next day he came in and I said ‘Which one was it?’ and he said ‘You have the two of them’.
“Initially I rejected it and I said to your man, ‘You go back to Trinity and give back your degrees’. I said ‘You don’t have a clue what you are talking about’.
“I think anybody who has gotten a cancer diagnosis would understand that, denial.” Christy said he had been thinking a lot about his mother and his father “especially now that I’m coming towards the end”.
And he said he felt Aslan had been drifting apart in recent years, but added that he had no regrets about his 40 years with the band. He said: “I had a brilliant life with them and when it was good it was absolutely amazing.”
The Christy Dignam interview will air tomorrow from 9am on The Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE Radio 1.
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