Achille Polonara dreams of a medal while waiting for a transplant

Achille Polonara took stock of his physical condition in an’interview in Repubblica: “I am very well. I completed just these days the second cycle of chemo and now I am doing some tests before returning to Bologna and waiting for the transplant. We have to wait for the search for a compatible donor to be completed, which I have been told is almost done. If all goes well, by the end of September I will be ready for the’surgery”.

“What have these months been like? Certainly when I was told the news, I felt a certain lurch, partly because the doctor did not know how to tell me and was looking for the right words. As the days went by, things improved, the first cycle of chemo went very well, and the doctors in Valencia themselves were satisfied beyond expectations. The second cycle was also intense but with very good results. Specific tablets were already available here in Spain that should lower the risk of recurrence in the future. In Bologna they would only have them in September, hence the choice to leave. Now we are ready to come back.”

Polonara has just signed with Dinamo Sassari: “It all started as a joke, for fun. I have a great relationship with President Sardara, he comments on my stories on Instagram, he had been close to me and from a month ago he started saying “look I have the contract ready, you tell me how and when”. Initially I told him I wanted to think about it. He insisted and I realized that he was serious. At that point I asked him to send me the proposal and in two, three days everything went through. No rush. Even after the transplant, no timeline, the sooner I come back, the happier everyone is.”

“After the discovery of my illness, on June 16, in the middle of the Scudetto series against Brescia, Virtus came together in a moving way and became unbeatable. Lifting the Scudetto cup was one of the greatest emotions of my life. Now it’s the Azzurri’s turn to bring me a medal, I want to touch it, put it around my neck, it would be a great gift in my most difficult summer. The boys sent me undershirts with my number 33 on them. They made me feel like one of them at all times. Like I was in the gathering. I heard many times from President Petrucci and Gigi Datome. I feel like a blue and I am living these hours before the European Championship with the same anxiety as them.”