Ex-coach suffers from lung cancer
Christoph Daum is in the intensive care unit
05/19/2023, 8:56 p.m
Christoph Daum has been fighting lung cancer for months and actually wants to defeat it with a special tactic. Now he tells RTL / ntv that he is in intensive care. But he may be able to leave the hospital soon.
Christoph Daum is in the intensive care unit. The coaching legend from the Bundesliga has been fighting lung cancer for some time and now said in an interview with RTL / ntv: “I’m in the hospital in New York in the intensive care unit. I can’t be expected for the time being.”
According to information from the German Press Agency, Daum was taken to the hospital in the US metropolis because an infection had developed around three weeks ago after an operation. This had to be treated. However, it is expected that he will soon be able to leave the hospital and return to Germany.
Lung cancer was discovered in the ex-coach during a routine check-up last summer. In an interview with RTL/ntv, the 69-year-old recently said that he only knew one tactic to fight his cancer. “It’s an absolute pressing situation,” said Daum. “Put pressure on the opponent, on the opposing cells, on the cancer cells. Go for it and don’t let them rest. Instead, fight until they are worn down, until they give up and until they retreat and disappear.” Or at least that he is in control of his body and his life, emphasized the football teacher.
“The moment you hear you have cancer, it’s like a death sentence for you,” Daum recalled in the interview about the diagnosis last summer. He couldn’t believe it at the time, he emphasized and reported that he felt so fit at the time and had a lung volume of five liters.
“Now I have the opponent in my body”
Daum also shared what it was like when he asked his wife to shave his hair after he started chemotherapy. At first she refused. After he said that she did the same with the dog, she also shaved it, and then she agreed.
The 69-year-old recently did sports three to four times a week. “I had to fight again and again. I always had an opponent or an enemy. The next game you had to beat the opponent, only now I have the opponent in my body,” he said RTL / ntv and explained what he was planning to do now I made everything: “To become a sensible grandfather. That’s my challenge.”