Katharina von der Leyen, 58, was born in Munich and has lived in England, Australia and the USA. She has written several bestsellers about dogs, most recently her guide “Chicken Love”. In the spring of 2022, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, an intravascular large B-cell lymphoma. The special expression in the brain is very rare: not even 100 cases have been documented worldwide. Von der Leyen’s prognosis still seems good.
A year ago, I realized my brain wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, which angered me because I’d thought of myself as a bit of a smartass all my life. Suddenly my brain was my weakest spot. I was constantly searching for words and it took me 40 minutes to write a single sentence. I couldn’t walk in a straight line, just fell off my bike and had a headache that dwarfed anything I’d ever had.
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