Dec Pierce: Why I Refused to Let Two Life-Threatening Illnesses Break Me

A Brain Haemorrhage. Then Breast Cancer. Same Man. Two
Years Apart. Dec Pierce Gets Completely Honest.


Most people know Dec Pierce as the voice of Block Rockin' Beats —
the man who brought thousands together through music, through
lockdown, through the nights they'll never forget. But behind the
energy and the stage presence, the last three years of Dec's life
have been extraordinary in the worst possible way.


In 2023, Dec suffered a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage mid-run in
Ringsend. In 2025, he was diagnosed with breast cancer — a
condition so rare in men it accounts for just 1% of all cases.
Two life-threatening illnesses in two years, in a man who doesn't
drink, doesn't smoke, exercises, eats well and does everything
right.


Ryan sits down with Dec for one of the most important men's
health conversations Made in Chaos has ever had.


What we get into:


Growing up as a quiet, bullied kid and how music became his
alter ego

Recording his own pretend radio shows at 8 years old from a
ghetto blaster

Dutch courage, a garden shed in Ballybrack and how pirate
radio changed his life

Why dance music and nostalgia connect with people on a deeper
level than almost anything else

Starting Block Rockin' Beats at his lowest professional point
— and doing it for free for six months

How the birth of his daughter Ava removed every roadblock and
fear of failure overnight

The bomb that went off in his head mid-run — and the sliding
doors moment that saved his life

What a subarachnoid haemorrhage actually does to the body,
and the long road back

The lump he found in New York in the shower — and almost let
sit there

The phone call he got on the first day of his holiday in
Spain

Why men don't check themselves — and why that silence costs
lives

The youngest male diagnosis his specialist had ever made —
and the earliest detection

Telling his 9-year-old daughter about the mastectomy scar

The nights when catastrophic thinking takes over — and how he
got through them

What two life-threatening illnesses gave him that nothing
else could



Ryan Curtis is a former Irish MMA fighter who was paralysed from
the neck down and told he would never walk again. Made in Chaos
exists to platform guests who have turned adversity into
something worth sharing.


Follow: @madeinchaospod | @chaoscurtis


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