Christy Dignam has opened up about receiving end-of-life care in what has been described as his “final ever” interview.
The Aslan star entered palliative care in January, and he has spent the last few months being cared for by his family at home in Finglas.
The 62-year-old singer spoke to Ryan Tubridy from his home this week, in a moving interview which will air on RTÉ Radio 1 on Monday morning.
He said: “Just fear, nobody wants to die. When I first got diagnosed [with cancer], I remember praying I was like ‘please, just give me 10 more years.’ And that 10 years are up now and you’re kind of saying, ‘I know I only asked for 10 but you couldn’t throw another 10 in there could you, yeah?”
Recalling the day he was told he had cancer, Christy said: “I kept getting these chest infections and they gave me antibiotics, but they didn’t seem to be working so I got an ambulance one day when I could hardly breath and they did a load of tests.”
“Then they sent me to Beaumont for a couple of biopsies and they told me it might be bad news. There might be two cancers – amyloidosis is one of them and multiple myoma is the other or it could be neither.”
The Dubliner continued: “I came in the next day, and they told me you’ve got the two of them… initially I rejected it and I said to your man, ‘you go back to Trinity and get your degrees because you don’t know what you’re talking about’.”
“Anyone who has got a cancer diagnosis will understand that, but I remember about five years prior to being diagnosed, I had to go out to the hospice in Raheny and there was this 17-year-old kid there and he was dying, and I went out and did a couple of songs.”
“When I was on the way back home, I got a phone call off his sister and she told me that the chap had died just after I’d left. I started thinking he had 17 years of life, and I was fifty at the time…”
Christy Dignam, you legend 💚 pic.twitter.com/zwttff4GQy
— Tony – Pod Guy – Groves (@Trickstersworld) September 15, 2022
“Initially I was so ill I couldn’t avoid confronting it. It hit me in the face but when I got a handle on the medication and stabilised the whole thing, I’d live as if there was nothing wrong with me and if something debilitated me, I’d deal with it that day. That’s the way it’s been.”
Christy is spending his final days in his house, where there is a medical bed set up in the living room.
He said: “It’s a conveyor belt up to heaven. I’ll come in here and that’ll be the end of it.”
I remember being in studio when Christy Dignam and the @rte_co recorded this stunning cover of 'Nothing Rhymed' for 'Big Music Week'. I was moved then listening to it, and still am today. My thoughts are with him and his family as he receives end-of-life care. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/F8WbVLlsK9
— Colm Flynn (@colmflynnire) January 21, 2023
Christy added: “I was sitting here one day a few weeks ago and I was looking out the window and this fella walked by, and I thought to myself, ‘I’ll never do that again. I’ll never just go for a walk…’ and that sent me into a spiral and I thought about all the things I won’t do again.”
“It’s like you’re heading into an abyss. I wouldn’t be hugely religious. Logic gets in the way. But I believe we’re all spiritual beings in one sense or other. I remember there used to be an old saying – that ‘religion is for people who want to go to heaven, spirituality is for people who have been to hell.’ And I really identified with that.”
