Rush Limbaugh in the final moments of his Dec. 23, 2020, broadcast (RushLimbaugh.com)
In his final broadcast of 2020, an emotional Rush Limbaugh expressed gratitude to God, his family and his listeners, lamenting that as he battles a terminal cancer diagnosis, the day will come "when I'm not going to be able to do this."
"You don't have any idea how ... ," he said, pausing to hold back tears. "I know so many people think this program has changed their lives for the better. You have no idea what you all have meant to me and my family, he said Wednesday.
He opened his three-hour program, the nation's most popular for three decades, with a personal note, saying the "point in all of this today is gratitude."
"My point in all of this is to say thanks and tell everybody involved how much I love you from the bottom of a sizable and growing and still-beating heart," said Limbaugh, 69.
In February he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Trump during the State of the Union after announcing he had been diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer.
"I wasn't expected to be alive today," he said. "I wasn't expected to make it to October, and then to November, and then to December. And yet, here I am, and today, got some problems, but I'm feeling pretty good today."
Limbaugh said the shocking diagnosis was as hard on others as it was on him.
"I can't be self-absorbed about it, when that is the tendency when you are told that you've got a due date," he said. "You have an expiration date. A lot of people never get told that, so they don't face life this way."
In October, he told listeners his doctors had informed him of a setback in his prognosis.
"The scans did show some progression of cancer," he said, adding it was "not dramatic, but it is the wrong direction."
"It's tough to realize that the days where I do not think I'm under a death sentence are over," Limbaugh said at the time. "Now, we all are, is the point. We all know that we're going to die at some point, but when you have a terminal disease diagnosis that has a time frame to it, then that puts a different psychological and even physical awareness to it."
A five-time winner of the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award for "Excellence in Syndicated and Network Broadcasting," many regard Limbaugh as the most influential voice in the conservative movement since his nationally syndicated show began in 1988.
He's a member of the Radio Hall of Fame and National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame and a New York Times bestselling author.
See video of the opening segment Wednesday:
See the entire show:
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