He knows he is doomed in the short or medium term, but he does not give up. In an interview with L’Equipe this Friday, Charles Biétry, 79, reveals his fight against Charcot’s disease, an incurable degenerative disease, in the current state of knowledge. Formally diagnosed for fifteen months, Charles Biétry has been fighting against the disease for five and a half years. Gradually, the pain gnawed at the muscles of his right foot, his right leg, then his right arm.
“The diagnosis is usually given when it is advanced. As I was doing everything to rebuild muscles that were leaving, the disease took a long time to catch on, he explains. After a while, she managed to get out of the corner and the diagnosis became clear. For others who have never played sports or because everyone is different, it can go much faster. Jean-Yves Lafesse (the comedian), for example, in less than a year, it was over (he died in July 2021 at the age of 64). One day, I saw a 20-year-old kid leave in a few days, I was terribly upset…”
“Over there, in Switzerland, you have to take the last pill yourself”
He relies on sport, off his Brittany, the passion of his life, to complicate the task of the disease. “I work every day physically, except Sunday because there is a lot of football on TV, he reports. I set myself a somewhat nebulous objective: to beat the record for longevity with this disease. The other time, I saw a gentleman who only communicates with his eyes. I don’t want to break that record… Me, I want to beat the record of the guy who is still friendly, with whom my friends can come and spend a day or two. »
For two months, the disease has attacked his mouth and complicates his speech. “The next step is the attack on the lungs, he describes. So far so good, but I’m watching. And when it doesn’t work anymore, I want to stop…”
Charles Biétry and his family are indeed considering assisted suicide, in the long term, and the person concerned makes no secret of it. “We organized everything with my wife and my children, he testifies. I don’t want to be hooked up to a machine to breathe when there’s nothing left, no future. I don’t want to suffer and especially to make my family suffer. We made arrangements to stop before we got to that. I registered in Switzerland for assisted suicide, all the papers are signed. […] That said, you are obliged to go to Switzerland with two members of your family. I find it hard to take on this trip… Over there, in Switzerland, you have to take the last pill yourself. This gesture, it’s easy to say “I’m going to do it” when I’m at the seaside in Carnac. When someone hands you the pill and tells you that two minutes later you’ll be dead, it’s not that simple. »