“I’m already doing pretty well”: Schröder-Köpf survives severe heart surgery

Thursday 10 December 2020

“I’m doing pretty well”
Schröder-Köpf survives severe heart surgery

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The former Chancellor’s wife Doris Schröder-Köpf has had a serious heart operation. Meanwhile, the member of the state parliament is doing better again. But it will take a while before she is fully fit again.

The SPD politician and former Chancellor’s wife Doris Schröder-Köpf is recovering from a serious heart operation. “I’m doing pretty well,” she told the magazine “Bunte”. Schröder-Köpf was operated on at the Hannover Medical School two weeks ago. The procedure, which lasted several hours, was actually only planned for January but then had to be brought forward.

“I had planned the Advent season differently. Even Christmas. But now I’m going into the New Year with a huge burden less and can spend the holidays with my family without fear of the upcoming surgery,” said the SPD politician, whose place in Lower Saxony Landtag remained vacant this week.

Everyday things like driving a car or blow-drying your hair without help are currently not possible. Her partner, Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Boris Pistorius, also has to take care of the Christmas dinner. “He cooks fantastic. Or we order pizza. The main thing is that we are all together.” The 60-year-old brings her favorite apples to the hospital, among other things, and reads her every wish from her eyes.

“New Testament Drafted”

Schröder-Köpf has three children, two daughters and a son. She was diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis earlier this year – a congenital heart defect. The main artery no longer closes properly and the heart is weakened. According to “Bunte”, the operation involves opening the chest, removing the heart and connecting it to the heart-lung machine.

In the summer Schröder-Köpf had prepared for the worst case in his own words. “I wrote a new will,” she said at the time. Her condition got worse and worse at that time. She said she was extremely strenuous climbing stairs, “Bunte” said. Now her heart is beating “independently and normally” again. But she still has to train her lungs.

The current member of the state parliament and former journalist became known in the 1990s as the wife of SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schörder, with whom she was married from 1997 to 2018. He married the South Korean interpreter Schröder-Kim So-Yeon in 2018.

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