This story is about Christophe Lafontant.
We’ve been friends since we were five and truly no one embodies the Team Never Quit spirit quite like him. In his thirty-five years, he has fought not only medical but physical and emotional battles his entire life. It is a miracle in itself he lived to see seven years old when his heart stopped and needed to have a life-saving pacemaker put in. Since then he has confronted, and overcome two heart transplants, diabetes, dialysis treatment, a kidney transplant, a tracheostomy, and other life altering procedures. He is now waiting for yet another kidney transplant as the rare disease, Myofibrillar Myopathy, riddles his body. Wheelchair bound and attached to a respirator at night, any one would understand if he wanted to give up.
But no one fights harder and more valiantly than Christophe. Changing the face of chronic illness, he proves to his family, friends, doctors, and himself over and over again that he is not just going to survive, but LIVE. He will not let whatever limitations are thrown at him slow him down. Good food, friends, and enjoying the simplest things in life are what he focuses on. He also organizes and distributes toys every Christmas to children stuck in the hospital. He is everyone’s biggest cheerleader and shoulder to cry on when you need support. He believes in sharing his story, the good and the bad, in an incredibly honest and raw way. He has published a memoir, 1 Man, 3 Hearts, 9 Lives: A story of hope, resilience, and survival. He hosts an event every year to raise both money and awareness for his extremely rare disease, reaching out to others who suffer from it, so that no one fights alone. It is truly an honor and a privilege to know him.