Georgi Peev is a three-time European swimming champion for transplanted athletes and a six-time vice-champion. At the last World Championship, he won the gold medal. Lives actively, works and sports – both before and after transplants. He says he never imagined for a moment that he could die. He believed that he would live, in spite of everything.
Peev told Nadia Pavlova what was the most dramatic and emotional moment for him and why he said to the nurse: “I’m begging you, if I’m going to die today, write me either yesterday or tomorrow.”
“At one time, even my purely physical condition was not compatible with life… The doctors wondered how I was alive. I did not take these things very seriously. For me, the most dramatic was when the heart transplant happened, because on the morning of August 24, as I laid down on the operating table and on the same day my son turned 5 years old… I shout to myself how stupid it is to die on your child’s birthday”, says Georgi Peev.
This is what the champion remembers about the heart transplant more than 10 years ago. A year and a half later, a kidney transplant was required and Peev became the first person in Europe with 2 transplanted organs. Since then, the world champion swimmer for transplant athletes has been trying to promote the idea of donation and shout to all of us that it is life. According to him, the topic should be discussed in the family and people should have enough adequate information. Peev says that the small number of transplants in our country is not due to the laws, but to the poor work of the coordinators in the country.
For more on the inspiring story of Georgi Peev, watch this Saturday at 20:00 in “Connections” with Nadia Pavlova on WNESSTV.
You can see more information on the show’s page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552728293588
Tags: World champion Georgi Peev begging die today write yesterday tomorrow
