My name is Alena & I was born in Essen in 1997.
I was diagnosed with bilateral RB at the age of 6 months, my left eye was removed & radiation treatment followed.
At that time, the doctors couldn’t predict how much sight I would have left in the course of my life.
Today I have about 20% left & I am short-sighted.

Nowadays, my reduced vision hardly affects me at all and people around me hardly notice it.
However, the visual changes caused by my second cancer at the age of seven are more obvious.
At that time, I was diagnosed with a soft tissue tumor, a rhabdomyosarcoma, in the left temporal region.
This was subsequently removed and treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Apart from that, my life is very normal & unspectacular.
I completed my training as an educator in 2019 & then started a distance learning course in social work.
I prefer to spend my free time with my two Australian Shepherd girls, with whom I have fulfilled a long-standing dream.
Of course I also go out for a drink with friends or something similar.
But my visual impairment hardly ever plays a role and even if there is a small obstacle, there are one or two tricks to overcome it.

Alena S.
Encourager