Julianne Hough says she and brother Derek Hough put aside differences amid his wife's health emergency

Julianne and her brother Derek Hough both know that their family’s health is way more important than any sibling squabbles. 

The Dancing With the Stars cohost told PEOPLE that any issues that she had with her older brother were immediately cast aside after his wife, Hayley Erbert, was hospitalized and had to undergo an emergency craniectomy last December.  

“Something happens and it just is like a clean slate,” Julianne explained. “Especially with what just happened with Derek and Hayley, there could have been little things just kind of looming or lingering in the background, but when you're left with life-or-death situations, nothing else matters.”

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She continued, “Whatever little things of competition there are or whatever it might be, those things just go away.”

Erbert was rushed to the hospital after becoming disoriented during a performance in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 6. Derek later confirmed that his wife, whom he’d married earlier that year, had undergone cranioplasty surgery in order to replace a section of her skull that had been removed during the previous operation. Once fully healed, Erbert returned to the stage once again with her husband in April. 

Julianne noted that she considers herself to be “blessed to have the family that I have” — even if they don’t always share the same “beliefs or understandings of things” in life. 

“The thing that hurts the most is when we're not connected," she said. "And so sometimes you do the thing that hurts the most, which is remove yourself because you're trying to protect yourself. So our family is like any other family. We have our situations and our s---, but our deepest desire is to connect. And I think we all really have a strong desire to make that happen.”

In addition to Erbert’s health scare, Julianne revealed that her sister, Katherine, has also had a “very challenging time” following the loss of “her partner to glioblastoma two years ago.”

But, no matter what comes their way, Julianne knows that she and her family will always be there for each other. She added, "When something tragic happens or something really hard or something where somebody needs you ... It makes you realize that as humans, as people on this planet, we really do care so much."