CHRISTY: Why I’m so lucky to be alive
Christy says he ‘doesn’t know how he’s still here’ 4yrs after diagnosis
ASLAN frontman Christy Dignam has revealed he believes the reason he is still alive is down to pure luck.
The 56-year-old has been battling cancer since 2013 and getting chemotherapy to keep the disease at bay. He said he is the only person alive out of a group of four people diagnosed with the rare form of the condition four years ago. He has two types of cancer – myeloma and amyloidosis. The Crazy World singer added: “There were three people I was diagnosed with at the same time and the three of them have passed away with the same condition. “I know how lucky I am to be here. It’s just luck. I don’t know why I’m here and they’re not. I responded to chemotherapy and they didn’t.” And Christy told of his recent medical setback in March when he had to be rushed to hospital with sepsis. The Dublin star said: “I was doing chemotherapy and your immune system does be completely depleted. “The first time I done chemo I was in hospital and I was in a sanitised situation but this time I was out and about and gigging and stuff. “You are shaking people’s hands and getting selfies done and that and people have colds. I got a bit of a germ and because I didn’t have the immune system it totally went mental. “On the Monday morning my wife at 7am took my temperature and it was 36C and by 11am it had gone up to 39.5C. “I was babbling incoherently. I don’t remember any of this. I woke up two days later in the hospital. It had turned to sepsis when it goes into your blood system. “They said to me at the time if I have been 12 hours later I would have gone into septic shock and, ‘We wouldn’t have been able to bring you back from there’. “I was very lucky. I was told later I was talking to people but I can’t remember that. “On Wednesday I saw a nurse and I was like, ‘What are you doing here?’ I thought she was in my house.” But Christy said things are on the up for him and he’s in the middle of making a documentary. He told Ray D’arcy on RTE Radio 1: “This company approached me and wanted to do a documentary but I wasn’t interested in doing a live thing because I have grandkids and I didn’t want to be bringing up stuff, you know. “They came and said, ‘How about we do The Road To The Iveagh Gardens? [gig in July] and we will just follow you around to your hospital visits and carry on,’ so I said yeah to that. “From just after Christmas they have been following me around everywhere. “I did one interview from 12am to 7pm in the house. I thought, ‘Jesus, they must be taking it serious rather than just a one-hour documentary’. It’s been very comprehensive.” And when asked if he gets embarrassed or ashamed about his drug use in the past, Christy said: “I obviously don’t want my grandkids to know about that, they are going to find out eventually, but at the moment they are too young to understand it. “In the outside world I’m not ashamed and embarrassed about it, it’s just apart of my life. “I’m actually proud of the recovery I have had since then.”
Medics told me if I had been 12 hours later I would’ve been gone CHRISTY DIGNAM YESTERDAY