Derek Hough greatly admires wife Hayley Erbert’s bravery amid her recovery from brain surgery.
“She’s unbelievable,” the professional dancer gushed to “Entertainment Tonight” Tuesday while on the red carpet for the premiere of Jennifer Lopez’s “This Is Me… Now: A Love Story” on Tuesday.
“When I married her, I knew she was strong, but I really didn’t realize how strong she really was until now.”
The “Dancing With The Stars” alum, 38, added that he is in “awe” of Erbert “every day.”
“She’s incredible. She really is a miracle,” he said. “I don’t really throw that word around lightly, but she really is.”
Erbert, 29, has been recovering since undergoing emergency brain surgery last December after she “became disoriented” amid the couple’s Symphony of Dance tour.
“She was diagnosed with a cranial hematoma from a burst blood vessel and required an emergency craniectomy,” Hough explained on Instagram at the time.
The condition involves a collection of blood underneath the skull or within the brain tissue that presses on the brain, according to the Mayo Clinic.
A few days later, Erbert underwent another procedure to “replace a large portion of her skull that was removed during her craniectomy,” Hough shared in another update.
By Christmas, the dancer returned home and began her recovery process.
“Cherishing the greatest gift of all. The precious gift of life and the love we share,” she wrote on Instagram while celebrating the holidays with her husband. “Hold your loved ones close and treasure every moment.”
Earlier this month, Erbert gave another update and unveiled the buzzed haircut she had to get due to the operation as well as the scar running down the center of her skull.
“To this day, I still have really good days and I have really bad days — emotionally and physically,” she shared in a joint video with Hough on Instagram.
“But I’m doing so much better every single day,” she added. “Truly there is so much progress every day, and I’m so grateful for that.”
Erbert added that she has “a new outlook on life” and is “grateful to be alive.”
Hough continued to applaud Erbert in the video, sharing with viewers, “Her perseverance and her acceptance of the whole situation — her strength — has been remarkable to witness firsthand.”
Just five months before her health scare, the couple tied the knot in Monterey County, Calif., last August.
