In addition to being a professional football player for Fortuna Sittard, Mickaël Tirpan is also a caregiver at times. His wife Avelien was recently diagnosed with the chronic and progressive disease multiple sclerosis (MS). He is there unconditionally for his 27-year-old wife. “Of course you have to swallow a few times when you get such a message, you see your existence completely collapse,” Tirpan told the newspaper on Saturday. General Newspaper.
“Such a beautiful, powerful woman, in the prime of her life, who just gave birth to our sweet daughter Roosje (almost two years old). You don’t believe it. But it happens. You see that again.” Tirpan emphasizes that they will not let themselves be crushed ‘by that fucking disease’. “’I have MS, I’m not MS’, my wife often says. And so it is. We go through all the walls together and are grateful for the nice life we lead.”
Avelien is an avid motocross racer and likes to stand in the stands between the hard core of Royal Antwerp FC and now Fortuna. The confrontation with MS and possibly a future in a wheelchair was not easy. “Sometimes my wife is afraid, yes,” Tirpan says. “Then she wonders what the coming years will bring, if we will always be as happy as we are now. In those moments I comfort her with the thought that no one’s life is certain. not even from healthy people.”
“And luckily she thinks the same most of the time. She is so energetic, so positive. Whether it’s with Roosje, with football, or with her own clothing store; she’s always on the go. So admirable.” In the meantime things are going well with his wife and so Tirpan is happy too. “Do you know the beauty of unpleasant events? They teach you to put things into perspective. I was also such a footballer who thought it was important to have a nice car, to wear expensive clothes. Well, believe me, that’s totally unimportant.”
“But totally. Complaining about trivial matters, while we live in such a fine country? Come on, you lose a day and a day like that never comes back. Drink coffee in the sun, cycle with a friend through a nature reserve, walk through the dunes with your wife. Enjoy! Really, you need so little to be happy,” emphasizes Tirpan, who hopes that people on social media will become nicer to each other. “Be nicer to each other, say. Tomorrow everything can just be over and then you will regret it.”