“At 17, we don’t know what death is, we just don’t feel concerned.” These words are those of Matthieu Lartot. The sports journalist returns, in his book We don’t amputate the heart (ed. Robert Laffont), on his life journey, strewn with pitfalls, from the announcement of his cancer when he was a teenager until his leg amputation in 2023. Growing up, all that mattered to him was sport, particularly rugby.. As he writes in his book, “Take it away from me, you will not take away my life, but what, in my eyes, is worth living. It’s just like.” However, the cancer did indeed reach his knee, and rugby then became a distant dream, impossible to achieve.
A gap between the reaction of those close to him and his own
In a passage from his autobiography, which he wrote to make people like him feel less alone, Matthieu Lartot recounts the difficult announcement of the diagnosis and the impact it had on the young teenager he was then. After an appointment with the surgeon who operated on his knee, thinking that it was an ordinary cyst, he learned that he had a tumor in his right knee. From the moment of diagnosis, the gap widens between his own feelings and those of his parents. “In the car, the dams that held back my parents’ tears gave way. It is perhaps the most striking image of this day which will nevertheless have others. No one likes to see their parents cry“, he relates. For his part, he oscillates “between astonishment and denial”. He tries to appear strong, a shell that worries his parents. “Do you understand what a tumor is? asks his mother. Do you know what cancer is?” He appears confident about the future, convinced that “everything will be alright” once he is treated.
“The sentence is not negotiable”
In reality, things will not go as planned. The specialist will put an end to his last hopes of being able to run behind a ball again. Part of his knee will be removed and a custom prosthesis installed, but he will lose the normal functions of his joint. It was at that moment that he understood that“There is no hope to be had”. The professionalism of the doctor and the prospect of a cure for their son reassure the parents of Matthieu Lartot. He is devastated by the news. “Goodbye to my knee, and therefore goodbye to sport”, he summarizes. He secretly hopes for a solution, but admits to having been in denial. “Deep down I know the sentence is non-negotiable. I just don’t have the strength to admit it.” Despite these trials, Matthieu Lartot did not let himself be defeated. No longer doing sport paradoxically allowed him to make sport his profession, by becoming a journalist for France Télévisions. A beautiful glimmer of hope for all the people who have been killed in mid-flight by the disease.