This drama pushed the family to their emotional limits.
On Saturday evening, hit star Jürgen Drews (78) and his wife Ramona (49) can be seen in the audience of the ARD show “The Big Beach Party 2023”. Their daughter Joelina (27) is on stage, the proud parents cheer her on. The family seems happy. You can’t tell from looking at her that the worst months are behind her.
Jürgen and Ramona Drews in the audience of the ARD “Strandparty”
Joelina Drews explains to BILD: “My mom got cancer in the spring, it was one malignant skin tumor. It was a huge shock for our whole family. We were terrified of losing her.”
Ramona Drews came to the diagnosis by accident. She had accompanied Jürgen Drews to an appointment with a dermatologist who wanted to have a few moles examined on his face.
On the occasion, Ramona showed the doctor a skin lesion above her breast, where a mole had previously been removed. The scar had again developed into an irregularity on the skin.
Jürgen Drews (right) with his wife Ramona (2nd from right), daughter Joelina and father-in-law Heinrich backstage at the “Schlagerstrandparty”
Joelina Drews: “The spot didn’t look good, the doctor took a sample right away. The next day he called my mom and told her he had bad news. A very aggressive skin cancer had been diagnosed and she needed to be operated on immediately.”
Specifically, it was a malignant sarcoma (dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans) that emanates from the connective tissue.
A world collapsed for Ramona Drews with the diagnosis, as did her husband Jürgen. After Joelina found out about her mother’s cancer, she immediately rushed from Berlin to her parents in Dülmen.
In love in 1995: Jürgen Drews and his wife Ramona were pregnant with Joelina at the time
Joelina: “Our family was in a state of emergency. I’ve never seen my mom so worried and anxious, because she’s actually always positive. We cried a lot these days.”
During the operation, Ramona Drews had the malignant tumor cut out of her breast. But after that, the family had to continue to worry whether the cancer had spread and metastases were present. Joelina and Jürgen visited Ramona every day in the clinic.
The “King of Mallorca” Jürgen Drews and his Queen Ramona in 2000
Joelina: “During this time I had to be there for my dad, who of course was very worried. It was completely unusual for him and also for me to live without my mum in a kind of shared flat for two. I cooked for dad, cared for and comforted him. All the burden of the family was on my shoulders, I had to take care of everything. And that at a time when I was not doing particularly well and I was in a phase of self-discovery. I was just trying to function.”
After a week of anxious waiting and a follow-up examination, the news came that the cancer hadn’t spread.
Joelina: “For us, that was the best news ever! In retrospect, we were glad that the tumor was discovered in time. Ultimately, Mama has Jürgen to thank for that, because he had made the trip to the dermatologist. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if Mom hadn’t accompanied him. I can’t imagine life without my mom. And neither does dad.”
Jürgen Drews had always raved about his Ramona in the past, saying about her: “Ramona is my everything and the love of my life. Without her I would lose my footing. I would like to die in her arms one day.”
The worries for the family did not stop when Ramona survived cancer. Because Ramona Drews’ mother Hildegard was getting worse and worse after heart surgery and sepsis. She died in June at the age of 84.
Loving contact: Ramona and Jürgen Drews behind the scenes of his ARD farewell show in January
Joelina: “My grandma was a fighter, the lioness in our family! She had a long ordeal and her death affected us all deeply. Most of all, of course, my grandpa Heinrich and my mum, who had just recovered from her own illness.”
Joelina Drews dedicated her new song “Spaceship” to her mother. She says: “The song is shaped by our time, in which wars, environmental disasters and many negative things prevail. An appeal to humanity in the hope of a better world. My mom showed that you can go through bad experiences and that things can still turn out for the better in the end.”