Thijs Slegers gave an update on his health situation on Wednesday. PSV’s press affairs manager, who was hit by acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in October last year, is optimistic about the future despite his serious illness. “I am very ill, but I feel great”, says Slegers in the Skiete Willy Podcast from Football International.
That gives the former journalist of the weekly a mixed feeling. “For me that is also very contrasting and confronting. I am critically ill, and that will not be all right without undergoing major surgery. But at the moment I just feel really great. I just had my monthly fitness test in the hospital. I’ve had five since I got sick and I’ve been fitter and stronger each time. I work out for two hours every day and work on my body. I do strength training four times a week, spinning four times a week , and I walk at least ten kilometers a day. Running is not possible, because then my heart rate is within 500 meters at 190. Then I have to go with an AED, that is not getting anywhere, so I don’t do that anymore “, he says with a sense of irony.
It is important for his treatment that Slegers stays as fit as possible. “In such a disease process you do not have much control over yourself,” said the PSV press secretary. “You have to have a good doctor, you will be assigned one, you cannot control that. I have been very lucky with that in the Máxima Medical Center. In addition, you must have a very good home front, fortunately I have good for that. In addition, you have to be lucky to get through it, because that is not a matter of course, but it is very important. The only thing you can control is to keep yourself as fit as possible. Everyone can do a little exercise. can still do a lot of sports, but even if you are really sick, in bed, you can still do things that help you keep up what little you have. I don’t want me to be able to say later: ‘If only I were fitter started that process. ‘”
Slegers explains what his treatment will look like in the near future. “I have to undergo a stem cell transplant in about a month. I want to appear there as fit as possible. I have been able to withstand all the chemo that I have had in recent months, because I am top fit.” The coming period will be tough for Slegers. “I will have to be in isolation for at least a month when I have undergone that stem cell transplant. That is just a kind of confinement, I am not looking forward to that, I must say. There are ALL patients who can avoid stem cell transplantation, you do not understand that yourself. the hand, and unfortunately that just didn’t work out for me. To indicate how intense it is, the doctor said: “It is better to get a heart transplant than a stem cell transplant.” When it comes to the surgery itself. “
The treatment consists of ‘resetting’ the body, Slegers explains. “They are going to do control alt delete with your body, so you can see it. First everything is actually destroyed in you, with chemotherapy and allogeneic body radiation. With that everything in your body is actually destroyed. And then when you are completely at zero, then you get new stem cells injected from a donor. They found someone somewhere in the world who has exactly the same tissue as me. That is very special. I said to my wife, “It must be either Leonardo DiCaprio or Lionel Messi”, jokes he.