NOS News•today, 09:14•Amended today, 09:24
Dieuwertje Blok (66) will stop all her work for the time being, she says in an interview with de Volkskrant. The presenter also disappears from public view for the time being. She has to undergo surgery “which is mutilating”.
Her nose has to be amputated because of cancer. It has not been possible to tackle the disease in any other way.
With the interview in the Volkskrant, Dieuwertje Blok tries to prepare people for “a big scare”, as she calls it. “At some point I will have to go outside again and then I like the idea that people know what it is and how I feel about it.”
Blok’s disease started with a small hard spot in her nose, which later turned out to be skin cancer. That seemed easy to combat, but that turned out not to be the case. And now it has been determined that her nose must be removed to prevent the risk of metastases.
The future of Dieuwertje Blok at the program for which she is best known (the Sinterklaas news) is still uncertain. She sees another opportunity with a nice prosthesis, although she has doubts. “I can also imagine that it all stops there for me.”
‘Door always open’
Broadcaster NTR speaks of a very nasty, difficult and almost unimaginable situation in which the presenter has ended up. “But Dieuwertje is coping with the humor and optimism that we know from her. We are now thinking first and only of her recovery because Dieuwertje’s health is of course the most important thing.”
The broadcaster keeps the door to it Sinterklaas news Open. “We assume she will come back.” She has been presenting that program since 2001.
Blok started as an announcer for the KRO in 1980 and has since appeared frequently on television. She can regularly be heard on the radio on the NPO Klassiek channel. Her program is currently presented by Maartje Stokkers.
