Wendy Dio Details Ronnie James Dio’s Final Days And Misdiagnosis: ‘We Never, Ever Thought He Was Gonna Die’

Wendy Dio, the widow and longtime manager of Ronnie James Dio, has opened up about the singer’s cancer diagnosis and final days, revealing that a “horrible doctor” initially gave him six months to live and that the couple remained optimistic about his recovery until the very end.

Appearing on Billy Corgan‘s podcast, “The Magnificent Others,” Wendy discussed Ronnie‘s legendary career, from Rainbow to replacing Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath, and the origins of his cancer. She explained that signs were missed years before his 2010 death.

“About five years before he passed away, [Ronnie] was complaining of indigestion. I took him to a very famous Beverly Hills doctor who… just said, ‘Oh, don’t worry. It’s gas, just gas,'” Wendy recalled (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “And he always had indigestion… But you see, with things like stomach cancer, gastric cancers and pancreatic cancer, there’s not really any signs until it’s too late.”

Wendy stated that Ronnie‘s last tour with the Black Sabbath offshoot Heaven & Hell was a happy time, though he wasn’t feeling well. “Everybody was back to loving each other, having fun, really enjoying themselves… [They were] gonna go out and do another album.”

After that tour, she took him to a local doctor, who delivered the devastating news.

“[The doctor] said, ‘He’s got stage four cancer.’ And I said, ‘Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him,'” Wendy shared. After a “horrible” experience at the Mayo Clinic where a doctor told Ronnie he would die, they were able to get into the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. There, a new doctor offered them hope.

Wendy described their bi-weekly trips for chemotherapy as a battle they were fighting together.

“We used to skip down the halls, going, ‘We’re gonna kill the dragon.’ We called it ‘killing the dragon’. And we never, ever, either one [of us], thought that Ronnie was gonna die, because he did very well.”

Wendy recounted a moment of hope when a trial drug called Avastin was administered. “We got off the plane and Ronnie said, ‘I think I can see better in my eye. My hand stopped shaking.'” She said an optician was stunned, saying: “I can’t understand this. Your sight’s back.” According to Wendy, the drug was taken off the market shortly after.

Just three weeks before he passed away, Ronnie was in Los Angeles accepting an award. “He was feeling really in a lot of pain. We went to the hospital… And he passed away.”

The outpouring of support, including a $10,000 donation from Iron Maiden, led Wendy to establish the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund.

“A lot of big organizations, they have so much administration costs. I would really like it to go right where it should go… We’ve raised almost three million dollars for research,” she said. The fund is notably supporting Dr. David Wong at UCLA for a non-invasive cancer test. “Because men, a lot of times, don’t get checked out ’cause they don’t want a finger up the butt. This would be a swab in the mouth, and it could [provide] early detection if you’ve got stomach cancer or pancreatic cancer. Those are the two killers. And they just named one of the labs at UCLA after Ronnie.”