By all accounts his quiet life here gives Smailović what he needs. For the past 17 years he has been living with diabetes, culminating in an amputation in 2017. With praise for the doctors and staff at The Royal and Musgrave Park hospitals, and with the support and care of his close friend Zinaida, he doesn’t allow the amputation or the diabetes to take over. However, he struggles in a way that other diabetics may recognise. “With diabetes you have to find your own way, what works and what doesn’t work,” he explained. “Sometimes when I'm in hospital my blood level is fine, and then I come home and straight away it’s high … you do something, and you think Aha! That’s it now … all the time it’s up and down.” But Vedran Smailović is a survivor, a determined forward thinker – best illustrated in a recollection by his friend Tommy Sands. “I remember (when we both went to play some encouraging music for politicians when the Good Friday Agreement Talks were in danger of faltering), a TV cameraman shouted, "Will you ever go back to Sarajevo?" Smailović answered without turning his head, "I don't go back. I go forward.” A sentiment perhaps our own politicians could consider. Cara gibney • Photography (Right): Tremaine Gregg
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W i th d i a b e te s y o u ha ve to fi nd y o ur o w n w a y, w hat w o rk s a nd w h at d o e sn’ t w o rk .