Christy vows to bounce back for daughter

GUTSY Aslan singer Christy Dignam is determined to win his cancer battle and be back on his feet in time to walk daughter Kiera down the aisle at her wedding this summer.

Speaking from Beaumont Hospital where he’s undergoing chemotherapy, Christy told worried fans he was

“doing fantastic

? and amazingly described his illness as

“probably the best thing that’s every happened to me

? as it has helped him focus on the important things in his life.

During an interview broadcast last week on RTE’s John Murray Show, the Northside band’s popular frontman revealed that his heart had stopped beating while in hospital and he explained how a visit to a terminally ill young cancer patient last year was helping him on the road to recovery.

Christy was admitted to hospital in March with a suspected chest infection, which turned out to be pneumonia. After numerous tests doctors delivered the devastating news that he had been diagnosed with cancer, something he refused to accept at first.

During last week’s candid interview the singer admitted that he had ignored his symptoms for a number of months.

“It started off, let’s say, I couldn’t walk about 250 yards without stopping, and then it went down to about 100 yards and then it went down to about five yards.

?

Christy soldiered on, playing gigs around Ireland. But his condition eventually deteriorated so much that he could only just about stand at the microphone, unable to perform his characteristic stage movements.

Despite his discomfort he kept postponing the inevitable trip to hospital, pushing himself to performance after performance on Aslan’s famous punishing schedule until one Friday night in early March he reached a gig too far.

“My plan was, do the Friday night’s gig and then I’d have about a week to recover. At the time I had pneumonia, but I didn’t know I had it. I knew I was very sick but I thought it was just another chest infection.

?

Christy never made that gig. He finally gave into his illness and was brought by ambulance to Blanchardstown Hospital.

“When I got into hospital the doctor said to my wife I’d be dead if I’d tried to get onto the stage on that Friday night. Simple as that.

“So I’m in the hospital and I’m really, really ill. At about 2.30am I woke up and got this hot flush through me so the nurses came running in saying

‘are you all right Christy?’ and I says

‘I think I’m going through the menopause. I’m after getting a hot flush.’

“I was just joking but next minute I started seeing stars and getting dizzy and, bump, I hit the deck.

?

Christy’s heart had stopped beating, but luckily for him alert hospital staff managed to get it going again. Later, he was dispatched to Beaumont Hospital for what he thought was a routine kidney biopsy.

“When I got there the doctor says to me,

‘listen Christy, we think you have a thing called amyloidosis, it’s like a cancer of the white blood cells’.

“I lost my absolute reason. I says

‘I have pneumonia ya gobshite. Where did you get your degree? Get out of this room’, and all that carry on. I just went straight into denial, you know.

?

Christy was started on chemotherapy and last week underwent his third round of the treatment. Ironically, the last time he was in Beaumont was last year when he was asked to visit a terminally ill 11-year-old child with cancer.

“I came up to see him and he was in an awful state. So I went back and got the band and I came up with a guitar and played a few songs for him. He died a couple of days later. So when I was lying here after the doctor had told me I had this cancer I said to myself,

‘right, this is the way it is Christy. You have this. If you go down the road saying you haven’t got it you’re gonna die. That’s end of story; you’re gonna die. You have it, let’s deal with it’.

?

“Immediately this kid came into my mind, and I’m 52 years of age, and I thought,

‘I’ve 41 years on this earth that this child never even had. How dare I even feel sorry for myself’.

?

Christy has now accepted his condition and has been boosted by a flood of messages of support from worried fans. He says he’s now doing

“remarkably well

? and is focussed on recovering in time for his daughter Kiera’s wedding in June.

“Everything’s going really well at the moment but tomorrow it could turn, and I’m being realistic,

? he said.

“Yesterday I had a brilliant day but last night I had one of the worst nights in me life, so it’s up and down. I don’t project beyond the day.

“My daughter is getting married at the end of June and that’s my focus.