Dr. Gabe Mirkin
Rush Limbaugh made more than $ 84 million a year by hosting his famous talk radio show, which he listened to more than 15 million a week. He was well known for leading the Conservative movement in the United States and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. On February 4, 2020, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom shortly after telling his radio audience that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
He had a terribly unhealthy lifestyle, punctuated by heavy smoking and drinking, non-exercise, obesity, and yo-yo dieting. He switched between lots of red meat and high-sugar foods and then switched to a diet that restricted meat and sugar. He suffered from heart problems and likely type II diabetes and died of lung cancer on February 17, 2021.
A life on the radio
Limbaugh was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1951. His father was a lawyer and had served as a fighter pilot during World War II. At the age of 16, Limbaugh was working on a local radio station KGMO and in 1971, at the age of 20, he became a DJ at WIXZ in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, but was fired after 18 months for an argument with the program director. He moved to KQV in Pittsburgh and was fired again. In 1975, at the age of 24, he moved to KUDL in Kansas City, Missouri, but was fired two years later. He found work at KFIX and was laid off within a few weeks. At 32, he found a job with KMBZ-AM in Kansas City but was fired again. He moved to Sacramento, California in 1984 and was first successful on the radio station KFBK.
Four years later, at the age of 37, he was hired by WABC-AM in New York City and became so popular that he was syndicated to more than 650 radio stations over the next three decades. By demonstrating the vast market for conservative content, he paved the way for many other conservative broadcasters. His show often had the largest audience of any radio broadcast of the year, and was second only to Howard Stern in terms of revenue. So excited was his audience that he could say what he wanted and keep broadcasting, even if he was very ill with lung cancer in the months before his death.
Personal life
Limbaugh married four times, divorced three times, and had no children.
• At the age of 26, he married Roxy Maxine McNeely, a sales clerk for the WHB radio station in Kansas City, Missouri. She filed for divorce three years later.
• At the age of 32 he married Michelle Sixta, a student and usher at the Kansas City Royals Stadium Club, and they divorced 7 years later.
• At the age of 43, he married Marta Fitzgerald, a 35-year-old aerobics trainer. They married Clarence Thomas in the US Supreme Court house and divorced 10 years later.
• He dated CNN newscaster Daryn Kagan at the age of 53 and they separated two years later.
• He started dating Kathryn Rogers, a Florida party planner, at the age of 56, and they married three years later with a wedding reception from Elton John.
Its medical problems
Limbaugh broke many of the rules of healthy living, with heavy cigarette smoking, which he treated by switching to cigars, and obesity, which he treated with repeated weight loss and weight gain.
• In 2001, he announced that he had become completely deaf in just three months and that doctors had restored part of his hearing through cochlear implant surgery.
• On October 3, 2003, he was suspected of having received the prescription drugs oxycodone and hydrocodone illegally and told his audience that he had been addicted to severe back pain for many years. Since the surgery could not treat his back pain, he began inpatient treatment for his addiction.
• In 2005 he had an operation for an “eye twitch” possibly caused by his cochlear implant.
• On April 28, 2006, an arrest warrant was issued against him for receiving 2,000 pain relievers from a Palm Beach pharmacy, prescribed by four doctors in six months.
• In June 2006, he was arrested at Palm Beach International Airport for importing Viagra from the Dominican Republic with a prescription in someone else’s name.
• In 2009, he went on a diet that helped him lose more than 90 pounds, followed by an emergency hospitalization for severe chest pain. He was told that he did not have a heart attack because he did not completely block the arteries leading to his heart. However, yoyo diets are heavily linked to heart disease, and some reports have said he had a heartache called angina pectoris.
• On December 30, 2009, he was admitted to a hospital in Hawaii with severe chest pain and re-diagnosed with angina, heart pain caused by clogged arteries leading to his heart.
• On April 8, 2014, he announced on his radio program that he had a hearing implant for his right side.
• On January 20, 2020, he became very out of breath and discovered he had advanced lung cancer.
• On October 20, 2020, Limbaugh announced on its broadcast that treatment had failed and that he was expected to die.
• He died of this disease on February 17, 2021 at the age of 70.
Lung Cancer Risk Factors and Prognosis
The 5-year survival rate for all patients with any type of lung cancer is 19 percent, and it’s only 6 percent for those who have the less common small cell lung cancer. About 70 percent of people diagnosed with small cell lung cancer have cancer that has spread at the time of diagnosis. I don’t have any information on whether Limbaugh had small cell lung cancer (SCLC) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but we know his cancer was widespread by the time he was diagnosed (stage 4) so his prognosis was very poor.
• Any form of tobacco consumption or smoking increases the risk of cancer: cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, chewing tobacco or cannabis. Limbaugh had said that he started smoking as a teenager and later switched from cigarettes to cigars.
• Radon, a natural radioactive gas made from tiny amounts of uranium, which is present in all rocks and soils and can penetrate into houses and other buildings, is another risk factor. and occupational or environmental exposure to substances such as arsenic, asbestos, beryllium, cadmium, coal and coke fumes, silica, nickel or diesel fumes.
More than 70 percent of lung cancers are caused by smoking, living with a smoker, or living in a house where a smoker previously lived. People who smoke for even a year and then quit completely are at increased risk of lung cancer and other cancers throughout the body for the rest of their lives. The increased risk of heart attacks from smoking decreases significantly after three years of smoking cessation and disappears completely after 10 years.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin is a villager. Learn more at www.drmirkin.com
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