Slovenian President Beats the Odds

When Slovenian President Janez Drnovsek found out in 2001 that the cancer in his kidney had spread to his liver and lungs, doctors deemed it incurable. Faced with the prognosis, Drnovsek reevaluated his life and how he was living it.

"When you are confronted with the perception of the end of your life, it’s an opportunity to look at things from a different point of view, to change priorities and establish a distance to this daily existence and all these material developments that you are taught are so important," he said as he sipped black tea in his office.

As his term comes to a close next month, Drnovsek is now one of the most popular public figures in all of Slovenia. When conventional medicine could not cure him, Drnovsek turned to alternative medicine, dabbling with Indian and Chinese healers. In addition to making major changes to his diet, Drnovsek also sought to nourish his soul, leaving Ljubljana for a remote home set in beautiful beech forests south of the Slovenian capital. Despite critics, Drnovsek says that this change of lifestyle has been beneficial to his health.

Drnovsek also has one incontrovertible riposte to those who say he went loopy. Against all odds, and in defiance of every medical prediction, he has not died in office. Indeed, he now claims to be cancer-free: "I am completely healed. I am cured of everything. I can’t prove it beyond being alive. I don’t need confirmation from a doctor. I just know.

[Times Online]