“Diagnosis as a Blessing” Janko Andrijasevic, Montenegro/Croatia
It must have been as early as 1987 that I started developing the first symptoms of VHL – hearing loss, tinnitus, and balance problems. Then ensued kidney complications and brain tumours. However, since I was misdiagnosed at the time, the VHL dots were not yet connected, and I thought of all those ailments as unrelated to each other. The doctors who treated me also never made a connection, since I live in Montenegro, a very small Balkan country where doctors have no experience in dealing with VHL at all.”
“In the mid 2000’s a very unusual event took place in my life. Surfing the Internet I accidentally discovered that I had a half-sibling I had never known about. This person lives in a major city in Western Europe, and very briefly after our initial contact we decided to meet. When we started talking about our lives, medical history was an unavoidable part of our story, on both sides. We both had similar records. The only difference was that my sibling had a VHL diagnosis. The logical step ensued in 2007, after twenty years of medical challenges. I went to this foreign clinic where my sibling lives and got tested for VHL. The tests came back positive. However strange it may sound, it was a relief. I finally learned what it was that I was fighting against.
Since my official diagnosis I have become a patient at the NIH in Bethesda, USA. I have had multiple surgeries there, and I am facing many more. I am sadly discovering that VHL is placing increasing limitations on my life almost daily. Still, I have not let VHL completely disrupt my life. I am currently 46 years of age, I have a successful career of a university professor, I write and publish books, travel the world, and generally share a positive outlook on life. I love to live, and although difficult, life with VHL can be beautiful, too.
Janko Andrijasevic
VHL Patient
Sep 8, 2019
