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First his wife - and now he too
Thankfully, he can laugh again, and he even makes his typical jokes! But the hardship and concern for the health of Walter Giller (81) were great ...
His wife Nadja Tiller (80) tells NEUE POST: "Walter has been diagnosed with a cancerous nodule in the right lung a few weeks ago." A huge shock to the actor couple - and only a year and a half after Nadja Tiller had breast cancer.
At the Asklepios Clinic in Hamburg-Harburg Walter Giller was operated on for five and a half hours. His wife, meanwhile, was sitting at home in Hamburg Altenstift Augustinum, waiting for news. "I had been asked not to come to the hospital, I sat there, just stared silently, could not deal with anything."
The cancer drama had already started last winter. Nadja Tiller recalls: "Walter had a freaking cough that just did not stop, and eventually he got some blood in his saliva." But an X-ray did not produce any results. The Viennese native explains: "As a young man, my husband had tuberculosis for six years, so the lungs are so encrusted that you could not see the cancerous nodules on the x-rays."
But when the cough did not go away, the family doctor ordered a bronchoscopy. The shock diagnosis: lung cancer. After that, everything went very fast, the necessary preliminary investigations were made, and on 27 July Walter Giller got under the knife.
Because he has a pacemaker, it had to be reset at the beginning of the operation. Otherwise the device would be out of sync due to the current used during the procedure.
In these difficult hours, the family kept together: daughter Natascha (49) arrived from her adopted country of Athens, and son Jan (45) hurried from Zurich shortly before the surgery. Everything went smoothly, the great German actor survived the lengthy intervention well. And typically Walter Giller: As soon as he awoke from anesthesia, he first asked about his dog! Because terrier lady "Mimsi" is his one and all and the love between master and dog very large.
Walter Giller will be discharged from the clinic on Wednesday of this week and then it will go straight to the rehab spa. The doctors have prescribed a lot of fresh air. Nadja Tiller: "My husband, as the doctors have explained, must learn to breathe again because part of the lung is missing and the middle part of the lung has been taken away."
Everyone is now full of confidence that the ghost cancer has disappeared forever from Walter Gillers life. Nadja Tiller accompanies her husband to rehab: "He's back on his feet and so amazingly well - it almost seems like a miracle to me, but it will take a while to get well."
