José Enrique Undergoes Surgery To Remove Brain Tumor

Most professional footballers who sign for a club like Liverpool would be expecting to play, in some capacity, somewhere, when they’re 32-years-old. The Fates were not so kind to former Liverpool fullback José Enrique.

A series of niggling and ongoing knee injuries significantly shortened Enrique’s career, forcing the Spaniard to hang up his boots last year.

The Fates can be cruel, and now Enrique is fighting for much more than his playing career. About a month ago, Enrique started feeling agitated, having migraine-like headaches, and seeing blurred and double vision. He was quickly diagnosed as having a chordoma, a rare type of brain tumor, just behind the eye.

He has since undergone surgery to remove the tumor, and now faces radiation treatment and a recovery which is expect to last until at least September.

This morning, an interview with Spanish publication Marca was released, as well as an Instagram post from the player himself.

In Marca, Enrique had the following to say about the ordeal:

“We were meeting with Chris Hughton, coach of Brighton that I had during my time at Newcastle, and that night I was beginning to get annoyed, I arrived at the hotel and thought they were migraines.

“During the night I had a brutal headache. The next morning I started to see blurry, then I started to see double, I had my eyes open and I saw double.

“I had to go to the emergency room and after nine hours there I had a CT scan with neurologists and the test indicated that a vein in my head had collapsed.

“I was sent to St. George’s Hospital in London immediately, specialising in neurology and I spent two nights there.

“It is a tumor located in a complicated area of ​​the head, it is very rare, it is not very usual, it was located behind the eye, that is why I now wear a patch.

“It was a complex surgery, Dr. Simal and his team operated on me last week, I went into the operating room at 9 in the morning and I left at 6 in the afternoon, the tumor was stuck to the artery and it was a complicated intervention.

”They did an exceptional job, I was in the ICU for 24 hours and I am very grateful to the work of Dr. Simal and his medical team.

”They were the worst days of my life I stayed in bed for five days without moving.”

Enrique lost 6 kilos in a single week, but has already regained vision, apparently surprising his doctors. He now has a month and a half to recover, before going to either Zurich or Paris for radiation treatment, 35 scheduled sessions over the upcoming months.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that everyone in Liverpool Country will be rooting for Enrique to make a full recovery.

Keep fighting, José, and You’ll Never Walk Alone.