Since the age of 22, Julia has suffered from cancer

Par
Eloïse Aubé
Published on
22 years old. The age of carelessness will say some. That of meetings, parties, travel, first mistakes. But for Julia, a resident of Le Havre, these years of young adults did not have this flavor there. Because at the dawn of her 22 years, she learns thatShe suffers from breast cancer. Cancer which, 12 years later, is still present.
On the occasion of World Cancer Day This Tuesday, February 4, 2025, she testifies to 76ACTU of his daily life, between medical meetings and (almost) ordinary life.
The shock of the ad (and denial)
For about two years, Julia felt a ball in the left breast. Nothing worrying, after all she is only 19 years old. The idea of a heavy pathology, especially in a family that does not wear it, does not touch their minds. Until the day when “it starts to hurt me really. I couldn’t sleep on my stomach anymore, ”she recalls.
We are in 2013. She decides to make an appointment with the doctor and spends a battery of exams: Mammography, scanner and biopsy. Fifteen days later, she receives a letter of which she does not immediately understand the content. Appointment is therefore made from his doctor.
And there she said to me: “But you have to be taken care of because it’s cancer”. In the letter I received was written: “The analysis highlights changes requiring therapeutic management”. At no time, I told myself that it was a tumor. You are 22 years old, you have something in the breast but you say to yourself is nothing.
She remembers as if it was yesterday of this ” blow». As she still lives with her parents, she returns home and collapses in tears against her father. Between two sobs, she announces the news to him. First incomprehensive, he indicates that it is necessary “to go to Becquerel [un centre de traitement du cancer à Rouen] And to do such and such an approach, ”she explains. His mother, warned by phone, then arrived in a rush. “From that moment, I have never cried again. »»
The start of treatments
Everything then goes very quickly. The appointment at the Henri-Canadque Center is made. “On the phone, I remember that the caregiver did not stop asking me my date of birth: 1991,” breathes Julia. Because at 22, breast cancers are very rare (breast cancers developing before the age of 35 represent less than 5 % of cases).
In three days, all the exams are carried out “for all those who know the care path, it is exceptional! ». We explain to him that the tumor is big – between two and three centimeters – and connects to the body “a bit like in Stranger Things»Quips the Havraise. The medical profession also indicates to him that The treatments will make it sterile.
In order to save her breast, she starts with chemotherapy. Hair loss, appetite… The weeks are linked and fatigue accumulates. After six months, the first results fall: chemotherapy has little effect, it will be necessary to remove the whole breast as well as the lymph node chain. She is barely 23 years old. 30 radiotherapy sessions will ensue – which will burn part of the esophagus – as well as hormone therapy since its cancer is hormone dependent. Concretely, it feeds on these hormones to grow.
It then continues this last treatment and begins its breast reconstruction in the installation of a prosthesis but it does not tolerate it. Then begins another technique which consists in taking fat in his body to reinject him in his breast. After five years, his hormonal treatment stops. And cancer returns.
Chimio every day
At the end of 2019, therefore, tumors reappear. This is the year Julia spent her capes (certificate of aptitude for the teaching of second degree teaching).
The tumors continued to grow or shrink.
Until January 2023 when it was once again operated – which puts an end to its breast reconstruction – and begins 30 radiotherapy sessions. In parallel, she resumes her treatment: a hormone therapy bite every month and oral chemotherapy, this time, every day. “The idea is really to block my hormones so I am chemically menopausal. »»
The healthcare team also tells him that radiotherapy weakens the framework. And it didn’t miss. Since the end of 2024, Julia has had three cracked ribs and can hardly perform certain daily tasks, such as shopping or carrying her niece in her arms. Nor can she work. “I had a scanner recently. I’m waiting for the results to know what to do. ”
“It’s not taboo”
His illness remains, even for the medical profession, an enigma. How to explain breast cancer at 22 years old? What is more active cancer? “I made genetic examinations in 2013 as well as my family. They found nothing. Same in 2023, with a further examination. There is still no explanation, ”says the Le Havraise who admits that the hardest to manage since the appearance of her illness, undoubtedly remains those around him:
It is undoubtedly the most scary. The word “cancer” is scary and I had to accept it. When you are young, everyone worries and asks lots of questions. And I juggle between “I don’t want to scare them” and the reality of what happens to me.
Regarding his friends, “They don’t dare. Often, they say to me: ‘We know you are not going well but we don’t dare tell you about it. In reality, if I want to talk about it, I talk about it. It’s not taboo ”.
An apprehension, no doubt linked to a fatal outcome. But Julia is not afraid of death.
“I was 22 at the time of the announcement so I didn’t think about it. Today a little more because I have a relapse and nodules continue to appear. However, I do not say to myself: ‘In three years, I died!’. In addition, in Becquerel, I am very well followed. Caregivers are kind, and not catastrophic without minimizing the disease. »»
Every three months, moreover, she returns to the establishment for surveillance exams.
Regarding a possible maternity, the future is vague for Julia: “If I adopt a child it is a risk because the treatments are heavy. I can’t inflict on that and inflict that on a child. Could I bring him everything he needs when I myself have exceptional needs? ».
Administrative struggle
In addition to the fight against the disease, Julia must also fight against the administration meanders . First to obtain a loan in order to buy your apartment (since 2022, the Aeras convention allows people with an aggravated health risk to make a bank loan). Then to obtain a full salary. Currently teacher in secondary school, she works 60 % full-time due to the heaviness of treatments, alternating between therapeutic half-time and half-time, one in two. Issue :The remaining 40 % is not compensatedDuring her half-time right, and she therefore has no full salary on this period. “I’ve been doing my feet for the administration for five years to get out of it. There, I just told me about fractional sick leave. We will see. »»
In the meantime, she continues her “little life”, although she is not ordinary. “I live with a sword of damocles above my head. My adult life is that. I don’t know what it is to live without cancer. »»
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