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Rush Limbaugh diagnosed with advanced lung cancer
Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh revealed that he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer at the end of his program.
USA TODAY
Rush Limbaugh is expressing “great gratitude” as he fights lung cancer.
Longtime conservative commentator 69 opened his last radio broadcast of 2020 thanking listeners and supporters of “The Rush Limbaugh Show”.
“I had a year to really reflect on the things that really matter … the things that are completely relevant and important to me,” said Limbaugh. “And you are all in this big conglomerate of things that are very important to me.”
Limbaugh said that “he was not expected to be alive today”.
“I was not expected to arrive until October, November and December,” he said. “And yet, here I am and today, I had some problems, but I’m feeling really good today … God knows how important this program is to me today.”
Rush Limbaugh says his stage 4 lung cancer has progressed “in the wrong direction”
Limbaugh revealed that he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in February, a “terminal diagnosis” that several doctors confirmed in late January. The broadcaster said he was “shocked” by his “terrible” illness, adding, “I’m Rush Limbaugh. I’m Mr. Big … I’m indestructible. I can’t be sure, but he was.”
“I cannot be self-centered about this, when that is the trend when they say you have a due date,” he said emotionally. “You have an expiration date. Many people never hear that, so they don’t look at life that way.”
President Trump awarded Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom in his State of the Union address in February.
“So many people put me first in all of this,” said Limbaugh. “I feel extremely fortunate and lucky. And because I was able to survive the diagnosis, I was able to receive, hear and process some of the most wonderful and pleasant things about me that I might never have heard of if I hadn’t been sick. “
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Fighting tears, Limbaugh said he “learned what love really is through it.”
“My point in all of this today is gratitude,” he said. “My goal in all of this is to thank and tell everyone involved how much I love you from the bottom of a considerable, growing and still beating heart.”
Limbaugh gave a special message to his wife Kathryn and family.
“It helped me to see very clearly about kindness in people and their decency,” he said. “And it confirms a lot about my instinctive beliefs about people.”
Limbaugh is the main conservative radio presenter, a star of radio waves for more than three decades, having started in the 1970s. According to Talkers, who monitors the audience for radio programs, Limbaugh is the announcer of the country’s most listened to radio, with 15.5 million listeners tuning in weekly in December 2019.
Contributing: Maria Puente
Rush Limbaugh gives a candid update on his battle against advanced lung cancer