Bologna coach Sinisa Mihajlovic has opened up about his battle with leukaemia, “I’m not a hero, I wanted to break a window, but my wife and the doctors stopped me.”
Mihajlovic has been battling the disease since last summer, and in an interview on the TV show ‘Verissimo’, the Serb recalls the chemotherapy process.
“I had 13 chemotherapy sessions in five days, but after the third they had already destroyed everything,” said Mihajlovic.
Bologna coach Sinisa Mihajlovic has opened up about his battle with leukaemia, “I’m not a hero, I wanted to break a window, but my wife and the doctors stopped me.”
Mihajlovic has been battling the disease since last summer, and in an interview on the TV show ‘Verissimo’, the Serb recalls the chemotherapy process.
“I had 13 chemotherapy sessions in five days, but after the third they had already destroyed everything,” said Mihajlovic.
“The first cycle was the heaviest, I also had panic attacks that I had never had because I was locked in a room with filtered air.
“I couldn’t go out and I was going crazy. I wanted to break the window with a chair, then my wife and some nurses stopped me, they gave me an injection and I calmed down.”
Despite winning applause from the footballing community for taking his battle public, Mihajlovic doesn’t view it that way.
“I don’t think I’m a hero. I’m a normal man with strengths and weaknesses. I only dealt with this as I am, but everyone has to face it as they see fit.
“Nobody should be ashamed of being sick or crying. The important thing is to have no regrets and to have the will to live and fight.”
The former Sampdoria and Lazio defender says that despite the second half of 2019 being a difficult year, Christmas was very special.
“I was sick but I had to give strength to my family because if they had seen me sad it would have been worse. I tried to always be positive and to smile, pretending not to worry them.
“This was one of the most difficult things to do because I wasn’t always in top form.
“It was the most beautiful Christmas of my life, with my whole family close by. There was also my mom, who got angry when I cried during the second press conference, but then at home she prepared Serbian dishes that are very tasty and they didn’t taste as bitter as almost all the other food I ate.
“Thanks to her, I gained some weight.”