Nick Mangold’s heartbreaking final interview before Jets great’s death at 41

Nick Mangold passed away Saturday at 41, less than two weeks after the former Jets center went public with the fact he needed a kidney transplant.

That same day, Oct. 14, Mangold spoke with The Post’s Steve Serby, in what’s believed to be his final interview.

“I assumed I’d be like 60 or so before it came up,” Mangold said that day. “But it’s reared its ugly head now, sooner than I thought it would.”

Mangold learned he had chronic kidney disease in 2006, but only let those closest to him aware of his condition until this month.

“I don’t think anybody knew about it other than the doctors and my family,’’ Mangold said. “I didn’t want any cloud hanging over anything that I did.”

But that changed when his health worsened recently, which led Mangold to have to get dialysis three times a week.

“Over the summer I had lost about 35 pounds over two months, and my red blood cell count dropped to about half of what is supposed to be normal,” Mangold told Serby. “I was very fatigued and having dizzy spells and nausea and everything and so I went to the doctor.”

That’s when he learned he needed a transplant for a new kidney, which he acknowledged was frightening.

“Oh, very much so,’’ Mangold said. “Getting told to go to the hospital immediately was not a great phone call to get. I don’t particularly like surgery, so that’s always scary. You put the trust in the doctors’ hands.”

Despite the dire situation he was in, Mangold said his life wasn’t at risk.

“It’s more just to get it done, rather than [a] life-or-death situation,’’ Mangold said. “Apparently you can be on dialysis for many years. It’s quality of life that we’re looking at.”

And he called himself “fortunate” that he knew what was ahead of him.

“In a weird way I’m actually kinda fortunate that I have a path to recovery,” Mangold said. “There’s a lot of people that go through illness and different things that there isn’t a direct path to how you get better. I have a direct path, I just need to go on that path.”

He wanted to go public, as well, to spread the message of kidney disease awareness.

“It’s something that I feel now I think a little bit more empowered to talk about,” Mangold said. “That it’s really affecting me, for people that it’s also affecting. Because there’s plenty of people out there that deal with chronic kidney disease in everyday life. I played 11 years with chronic kidney disease, and now, if I have the opportunity to share that message, that I was able to do things that I wanted to do while dealing with it, that they can do things as well.”

He leaves behind his wife, Jenny, and four children, Matthew, 14; Eloise, 11; Thomas, 9; and Charlotte, 7.