Monica Lierhaus
“I’m not afraid of Corona – just afraid of spiders”
Monica Lierhaus with her niece Greta Lierhaus at the 10th Emotion Award ceremony at the end of November in the Curio Haus in Hamburg.
© imago / Future Image
Monica Lierhaus is preparing for Christmas with the family. In an interview, she talks about training progress and new goals.
After the unsuccessful operation in 2009, the former “Sportschau” presenter Monica Lierhaus (51) continued to train her motor skills. “The last progress I made is that I can now get off the floor by myself”, she tells in an interview with “Bild”. It took ten years, but now she can do it again. “That feels great,” says the woman from Hamburg.
“You have to learn to celebrate even these small steps as successes – and to see things that used to be taken for granted as successes”, Lierhaus continues. For this “small step” she made “a lot of effort”. “I worked this out bit by bit in physiotherapy, with exercises on the mats. And it gives me hope that such steps will continue to be possible.”
Her next goal is already clear: “To be able to do my own braids again. My left fingertips are numb, so unfortunately that is not possible so far. But you can get closer to it through other movements, I would like to try that,” she says Journalist and TV presenter.
Christmas with the whole family
Lierhaus celebrates Christmas “like every year with the whole family” with her sister. And Corona? “We are all vaccinated, that’s no problem,” she says. “I’m not afraid of Corona myself – just afraid of spiders. I don’t have any particular risk there either. Besides, I’ve always been somehow free of fear, apart from spiders,” she explains. In their current situation, that has many advantages. But also in general in life.
The big turning point in her life
In 2009 the moderator was diagnosed with an aneurysm while preparing for an eye operation. There were complications during the removal, and Lierhaus had to be put into an artificial coma for four months. In rehab she had to swallow, eat and learn to move again.