the essential
Last year, 433,136 new cases of cancer were detected in France, according to the National Cancer Institute (INCa). Among them, Mélanie, a woman from Auch treated at the city’s hospital center. Interview.
It was January 22, 2022. Mélanie woke up suddenly, early in the morning, with terrible pain in her abdomen. “I called the emergency room, they told me to take a painkiller and go back to bed,” remembers the Auscitaine. But nothing worked, the pain persisted. At 8:30 a.m., an ambulance arrived, Mélanie was taken directly to the emergency room.
“There, they discovered that there was indeed a problem,” says the sixty-year-old. She was operated on urgently. The next day, the doctor in charge of her operation went to her room, the situation was critical. “I was told that I had septicemia, peritonitis (an acute inflammation of the peritoneum which is the membrane that covers the viscera and the walls of the abdominal cavity, editor’s note) and a perforation of the small intestine.” The segment of this part of the digestive system was therefore sent for analysis. A cancerous lymphoma was then discovered.
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Mélanie was then offered chemotherapy treatment. “I categorically refused for the first six months,” recalls the sixty-year-old, “I was too scared.” Only a few years earlier, on September 27, 2016, she lost her sister, following the detection of inoperable liver cancer. And yet, it was six years later, on the same date, September 27, 2022, that Mélanie entered the clinic. “My entourage convinced me, so I went to the private clinic of Embats, in Auch, in the Gers, so as not to experience the treatment alone.”
Almost a year of chemotherapy
For almost a year, Mélanie has been undergoing chemotherapy, which began on October 7, 2022. Every three weeks, she goes to the Auch hospital center to follow her treatment for a whole day. The side effects are felt, the Auscitaine is also contaminated by Covid-19. Several blood and plasma transfusions then follow.
“It was a complicated period, there were some very difficult moments, but you know what helped me hold on? The doctors, the patients at the clinic, my entourage who are extraordinary, thanks Mélanie. The nursing staff at the clinic even gave me a little present for my birthday, on October 12th.”
But since January 20, 2023, this passage has become a thing of the past for Mélanie, who is now in remission: the absence of cancer cells is effective.
“My father was an incestuous pedophile”
Since the end of her treatment, Mélanie walks every morning, between 2 and 4 km. She continues to visit her friends at the clinic, follows a sports coach and a dietician. “Before, I was plunged into a serious depression, I had a very violent childhood. My father was a filthy character, incestuous pedophile, all four of us ended up in the pot, I quickly developed personality disorders.”
According to Mélanie, her cancer has “led her into a phase of resilience.” Every day, she says she feels better. The Auscitaine has also been able to stop taking anxiolytics and antidepressants. Out of five people with cancer in her family, Mélanie is the only survivor.
