“I was given a gift”, confides Fabrice Dunon, heart transplant athlete

Fabrice Dunon, a heart transplant athlete, was born with a heart defect. “It’s a malformation that didn’t prevent me from living normally until I was 25. Afterwards, I was told about a transplant project”, he says. He then had to find a donor. “When we propose a transplant project to a person who needs a heart transplant or other, we enter into a protocol where we are put on a waiting list”, explains the athlete. Placed on the waiting list in September 2010, he waited 11 months before his transplant.

“11 months is a long time, because we need this transplant to get better. And at the same time, I think we have to accept it”he confides, while specifying that he knows people “who waited much longer”. Fabrice Dunon also discusses the acceptance process. “In the transplant project, (…) we also see a psychologist, who talks to us about how the operation will go, but above all how, if everything goes well, [se passe] the rest as a transplant recipient”he explains.

Fabrice Dunon finally ensures that he thinks “fairly regularly” to its donor. “I think about it, but above all I think about the fact that I was given a gift. Not only to this person, but to all the people who say yes to taking samples from their loved ones”he said.