TV chef Alexander Herrmann lost his parents as a child. As an adult, he developed skin cancer and is now talking about it for the first time.
TV chef Alexander Herrmann (49) lost both parents in a car accident at the age of nine. In his new autobiography "… and a pinch of madness" he tells of another stroke of fate: skin cancer.
Almost ten years ago, the TV star, known for example from "The Taste", and head of the Bavarian "Posthotel" in Wirsberg, received the diagnosis. In an interview with the "Bild" newspaper, he describes the course of the disease: "It looked like a fat deposit. I went to the doctor, the lump was cut out and a tissue sample was sent in for examination. And it turned out to be a malignant tumor (…) ". Merkel cell carcinoma, a very rare skin tumor, was diagnosed.
A shock for the popular star chef: Herrmann: "If the tumor had been only two millimeters larger, it would have spread. It was close, I was very lucky. I had to go to radiation after the operation, but not to chemotherapy."
Cancer "made him a better boss"
Since then, Herrmann has been going to regular checkups. Two years ago he would have had himself completely checked in the MRI again. "Every millimeter" of his body was examined. Herrmann: "I was still a little nervous then." Fortunately everything was fine.
But he did not perceive the illness as a stroke of fate: "I don't ask myself now: Why did this happen to me?" Cancer is "a bingo game". The cancer would have had one positive aspect: it would have made him "a better boss".