This is the saddest post I have ever written for this blog, which has been going since 2010.  At the end of his three-hour radio program today, my Hero announced that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.  This announcement shook me up, as you might imagine given the title of my blog.  I have been a RushBabe for as long as that appellation has existed.  Rush has been my go-to source of information and commentary on every possible subject, for as long as I have been an addict (2001).  He is absolutely irreplaceable, and has risen above all possible sources of competition.

No radio host, of ANY persuasion, has Rush’s reach or audience, or reputation for straight-talking.  No one can match his sense of humor, or ability to get to the heart of any issue in few words.  He has always been the master of the pithy phrase, and if he’s not really right 99.7% of the time, he’s so close as to not bother with a distinction.  What Rush says, goes.  Rush always says that he knows the Left better than they know themselves, and that is perfectly true.  He can divine intentions from very few words of any leftist, and communicate that to his audience.  Remember Air America? He had them pegged from Day One, and they didn’t last long.

We all know the the Left has zero sense of humor.  Well, Rush has it all.  Every last dotted “i” and crossed “t”.  I remember the first time I heard Rush on the radio.  It was early in 2001, and I was in my boyfriend’s (now Hubby) car on the way out to dinner-I even remember where we were, going south in I-5 in Everett.  He turned on the radio, and Rush happened to be on.  I said “You’re not going to make me listen to Rush Limbaugh, are you?”, and he didn’t say anything, but he left the radio on.  Well, after I had listened to about ten minutes, I was laughing out loud, and I was hooked!  I remember saying to boyfriend, “This guy is just hilarious!”, and the rest of the drive was very pleasant, since we had something to talk about.  We loved his fake commercials, and the “Justice Brothers” skits, making fun of the Left, and race-baiters everywhere.  He made Paul Shanklin, who did those skits, more famous than he otherwise would have been.

Who hasn’t heard Rush claim that he lives rent-free in someone’s brain? And who hasn’t said that he lives rent-free in Their brain?! Well, he lives rent-free in my brain, I don’t know about yours.

Rush also made a lot of people very popular, with just one or two words.  All he had to do  was mention any Web site, and it would immediately get so much traffic that it would crash.  He mentioned this often, when warning fans what they would be in for if he gave out their address on the air.  That’s how influential he is.  Advertisers beat down his door, begging to be a sponsor of his show.  In fact, when he said something a leftist didn’t like, and that leftist trashed Rush, it just made him more popular!  More than once, the internet trolls tried to get people to boycott his advertisers (as a way of getting to him), but it would never work.  Loyal fans just directed more business their way, and made the advertisers and Rush even more popular (and wealthier, too).

Rush has had his problems before, and always been honest with his listeners.  I know he’s had weight problems, and you could tell from the various pictures he’s post how his weight would fluctuate (a condition that RushBabe is quite familiar with).  We also were with him through marriages and divorces (and we were thrilled at his marriage to Kathryn, which should stand him in good stead now that he has her by his side).  Then, there was the issue with drug use (where the lame media tried to destroy him without result), and his resulting deafness.  And he has come out on top every single time.  For someone who lives by his voice, he triumphed over his deafness astoundingly well.  If you had not known him before, you would not have a clue about it at all.  And we were all right there with him, lending support, every day.

Earlier, Rush also made me smile, with his cat tales.  I was jealous, because he had two different Abyssinian cats, and I had one at one time, too.  So I could perfectly understand when he had to pull a kitty off the curtains!  This is one of my favorite pictures that he posted on his Web site.  Can you resist either of these fuzzballs?

In 2005, I was fortunate to be able to speak to Rush on the air.  I actually called in from my desk at work, and I don’t think my boss ever found out about it!  I was on hold for over an hour, and did my work while I waited.  This was around the time of Hurricane Katrina, and I thought he’d get a kick out of my idea for what to say if we had to evacuate the city during a disaster.  With Seattle trying to get everyone out of their cars and into public transportation, no way would I offer anyone else a ride out of town!  Well, he was a very gracious host, and carried on a fine, two-way conversation.  He liked my tale of how I got to start listening to his show.  I still remember, and will always cherish, that opportunity to speak with the world’s smartest talk-show host.

In 2006, my husband and I took a short vacation in Upstate New York, after the Everett Symphony gave our concert in Carnegie Hall.  I was wearing my Rush Limbaugh Club Git’mo t-shirt.  I just had to have hubby take my picture in front of the Democrat Party booth at the Albany July 4 Fair.

It’s remarkable how Rush can talk at length about just any item of news or information, with no notes and little hesitation.  His breadth of knowledge is profound, and there seems to be nothing he is unfamiliar with.  He would speak at CPAC, or one of his “Rush to Excellence” tours entirely without any prompting or notes of any kind, and his audiences always listened closely and applauded in all the right places.  Every year, he would have his Leukemia & Lymphoma Foundation telethon on his show, and raise literally millions of dollars; he got me to become a donor!  His sale of Betsy Ross T-shirts also raised many millions of dollars for the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

Having a medical background from my pharmacy technician days, I know what a formidable foe cancer is, especially lung cancer.  But the unsurpassed American pharmaceutical industry has come up with many new treatments for all kinds of cancer, and I will never count him out as long as anything remains untried.  I expect that Rush Limbaugh will have access to the very best oncologists that exist in this country, and the very latest treatments.  I’m sure that he is aware that he has at least 27 million supporters out there, who will all be sending their prayers heavenward on his behalf.  Just the members of the Ricochet “Divine Help” group will be sending up some pretty powerful prayers.

[Update on February 4]

Tonight President Trump will give his State of the Union speech, in the Camp of his Sworn Enemy, the DemocRats of the House of Representatives.  My Hero, Rush Limbaugh, will be in the audience for the speech.  And he will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by his friend, Donald Trump.  That award couldn’t happen to a more deserving Champion of Liberty in our country.

From the Fox News Web site, praise for Rush from Andrew McCarthy.

Rush Limbaugh is a true National Treasure, with the biggest heart on the radio.  I urge all my followers to keep him in their hearts, and in their prayers in the days ahead.  Rush, We Love You! You will live Rent-Free in our hearts forever.