Lainer's time of suffering
First a joke, then a horror diagnosis in the shower
Stefan Lainer was diagnosed with cancer nine months ago and has since made it back into the Austrian national team. In an interview, the 31-year-old Gladbach star has now spoken about the difficult time he went through last year. He revealed that he received the shock news in the shower after training.
"I was full of euphoria and really wanted to show our coach Gerardo Seoane that I was in a good mood, that there was no way around me. We had trained really well. I was in the shower, still making jokes. Then our doctor Dr. Heribert Ditzel came, took me out with a serious face and told me what was going on," Lainer told Sport Bild, describing what had happened after training on 17 July last year.
First, his closest team-mates were told the horror diagnosis, then the Salzburg player phoned his wife: "That was crazy. My family was upset, while I overplayed the shock a bit and tried to calm down," said Lainer, who despite everything never thought that he might not survive the cancer. He just thought: "That's it for soccer now."
"Five days in hospital"
The full-back's time of suffering included four chemo blocks and six courses of antibodies. "I got worse from chemo block to chemo block. I coped well with the first one, but by the third I was no longer able to do any sport. On the fourth, I got an infection, had to stay in hospital for five days with a high temperature and initially received an infusion every hour, probably 30 in total."
His contract with Borussia Mönchengladbach expires in the summer, and Lainer has so far rejected a "pity contract", as reported by "Sport Bild". His focus is on the season finale in the German Bundesliga and then - hopefully - the EURO in Germany. "It would be the perfect climax to a difficult story if I could really make it to the European Championships within a year after being diagnosed with cancer last July via my comeback at Gladbach," said Lainer.
Da dieser Artikel älter als 18 Monate ist, ist zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt kein Kommentieren mehr möglich.
Wir laden Sie ein, bei einer aktuelleren themenrelevanten Story mitzudiskutieren: Themenübersicht.
Bei Fragen können Sie sich gern an das Community-Team per Mail an forum@krone.at wenden.