Cancer, setbacks, five percent chance of survival – and still hope. The family of 15-year-old Delani Diekmeier is not giving up. A story about fighting spirit, solidarity and the question of how much hope one person can carry.
She couldn’t celebrate her 15th birthday like a normal teenager. Delani, the daughter of former Bundesliga professional Dennis Diekmeier (36/including Hamburger SV), spent December 18th alone. In isolation in a hospital in Würzburg. Nevertheless, there was more hope for Delani and the entire family in the hours surrounding this special day than all the colorful balloons in the world could express. The thoughts have turned. Fear eventually turned into confidence.
Delani Diekmeier has kidney cancer. The malignant tumor has spread to her lungs and she has already had three operations. In the last operation to date, more than 50 metastases were removed. Doctors estimated the chance of survival at five percent.
Now the ray of hope. A brighter one than ever before in the entire period of suffering: a new therapy called IMAZA, which comes from nuclear medicine, has initially worked. During the week of her birthday, Delani was injected with a radioactive preparation that is supposed to attack tumor cells even more specifically. This form of therapy is specifically intended for the treatment of advanced adrenocortical carcinoma.
For Delani, that meant five days of complete isolation. She also missed her sister Divia’s eighth birthday on December 17. Shortly before Christmas, the good news came: the 15-year-old was allowed to go home. Now it’s time to take a deep breath and the same therapy will be repeated in six weeks.
Dennis Diekmeier has been taking a break since the summer
Delani Diekmeier – her fate moves people. The belief in a miracle in a family with four children is huge. Her strength and courage, as her parents describe again and again, seem unshakable. “She is a brutal fighter,” says her father Dennis, who most recently worked as an assistant coach at the regional league team SV Sandhausen. He has tears in his eyes. The family suffers like any other who fears for the life of their own child.
The millions from the football business no longer play a role. They would give anything for more time. But they are also tears of pride. To the daughter who fights every day. Diekmeier has been taking a break since the summer. Before the crucial week, he said to RTL: “We can see that Delani is in a really good mood right now. When you see what positive spurts she has made. That’s really nice to see.”
The nightmare began in January 2025. The family was asked to go to the hospital; Delani’s blood values were abnormal. After three days in the clinic the diagnosis was made: a tumor. Twelve by twelve centimeters on the adrenal gland. He is removed. But the cancer has already spread to the lungs. The diagnosis: Delani will not survive the year 2025.
“We lived a happy life. Suddenly everything collapses,” says Delani’s father. The whole family has been fighting ever since. Together, Dana and Dennis Diekmeier launched a fundraising campaign to benefit cancer research. To encourage other affected people to help.
Delani loses all her hair and only weighs 48 kg
Many months of hospital stays, one setback after another, full of fear and worries lie behind the Diekmeiers. Always new metastases. Immunotherapy doesn’t work. Delani loses all her hair and only weighs 48 kg. The information from the doctors in Heidelberg is becoming more brutal. Every word hits the heart. The worst news: The family should just make things nice for Delani; it is palliative.
The Diekmeiers don’t accept that. Dennis, the former defender, and his wife change doctors, first in Frankfurt, now in Würzburg. Dana Diekmeier (40) says in an interview with the magazine “Bunte”: “I don’t just watch my child die.”
Delani’s family and horses gave her strength. She even rode in tournaments and became Baden champion. A break in Dubai at the end of October also helped, during which Delani’s catheter was converted so that she can go into the water. A bit of normality. Joy.
To this day, Dana and Dennis have not told their children how sick Delani really is. Dana says in an interview with Sky about the topic of death: “I can’t imagine being without Delani. That’s why it’s hard for me to talk to her about death and what happens afterward, because I always think to myself: I can’t celebrate Christmas without her or one of the others’ birthdays if one of them is missing. And that’s why these thoughts simply don’t exist because that shouldn’t happen.” She says that an emergency doctor had to come at night a few weeks ago: “She was lying in bed and couldn’t do anything anymore. She looked at me and asked if it was ready now. I said: I don’t know.”
Lots of support from football
There are always people from the football world who encourage the family. Like Jürgen Klopp, who said in a video that he admired Delani for her power, strength and positivity: “It’s not easy, but you can do it, every day.” Like Diekmeier’s former club HSV, which presented its former player with a jersey with his daughter’s name, Diekmeier’s old number 2 and all the signatures of the current squad. Like Darmstadt captain Marcel Schuhen, who together with the Wiesbaden initiative “Legends for Life” called on all professional clubs in mid-November to follow HSV’s example and then auction off the jerseys to benefit cancer research.
Before it becomes clear whether the new therapy will bring the hoped-for success, the Diekmeier family is looking ahead to their next vacation over New Year’s Eve. “We’re on vacation at the Aldiana Club Ampflwang with friends in Austria. We just want to have a good time,” says Dana. “We’ve become even closer as a family. We’re having a good time and not having the stress we’ve had all year.”
