BBC RADIO 2 legend Johnnie Walker has spoken about his terminal illness, sharing that doctors warned he could “die at any moment”.
The music show host has worked for the Beeb since 1969, and currently heads up both Sounds of the 70s and The Radio 2 Rock Show.
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He sadly suffered from a heart attack in 2019 and had to undergo a triple heart bypass.
Just one year later he was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which is a condition where inflation of the lungs means breathing becomes difficult.
As his health deteriorated Johnnie had to start presenting his radio shows from his home in Dorset, where he receives round-the-clock care from his wife Tiggy.
During Carers Week the couple opened up about what it has been like for them living with the possibility of Johnnie passing at any moment hanging over their heads.
In a heartbreaking segment on their BBC Sounds podcast Tiggy admitted: “I’m so tired. Sometimes I find it hard to go on.”
She also shared that for the first six weeks after his diagnosis, she was heartbroken and already grieving the life they had together.
Medical consultants told the couple that Johnnie should “prepare to go at any moment”.
Tiggy added: “It was only by going to the doctors and going on antidepressants that I have kept going, because I was crying every single day and I was overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of everything I had to do.”
Johnnie was contemplative when he spoke about grappling with death, referring to having “only a finite amount of time left here in the physical before I pass over”.
The radio veteran showed a huge amount of empathy for his wife, putting himself in her shoes during their nightly routine by acknowledging she “very lovingly helps me get into bed and gives me a nice kiss good night, and then she has to wonder whether I’m still going to be alive in the morning, which must be pretty hard for her”.
He went on to say that she saved his life when he had cancer in 2006, adding: “Your love was just so sustaining, it gave me so much to look forward to. And your caring for me now makes my life so much better.”
The roles between the pair have been reversed after Johnnie was forced to step up to care for his wife in 2013 after she was given the heartbreaking news that she had breast cancer.
Speaking about her own cancer battle at the time to the Daily Express, she recalled: “The idea of chemotherapy simply horrified me because I’d seen how it devastated Johnnie.
“For nine months after his diagnosis with non-Hodgkin lymphoma I was needed 100 per cent.
“She has to wonder whether I’m still going to be alive in the morning which must be very hard for her.”
Johnnie Walker
“Being a carer is far harder than being a cancer patient because you have to stay strong but you’re so incredibly isolated.”
Johnnie and Tiggy have been married for 22 years with his wife admitting that her caring duties have changed since his first cancer diagnosis to know as she reflected how her age had played a factor in the amount she is able to do.
She candidly confessed: “I’m so tired, sometimes I find it hard to go on.”
Johnnie went on to confirm that the couple had now been forced to sleep in different rooms as a result of his needs and sleeping with an oxygen mask.
He said on the programme: “Obviously we’re in separate rooms because the oxygen machine is quite noisy, it would keep Tiggy awake.
“She has to wonder whether I’m still going to be alive in the morning which must be very hard for her.”
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