For a year, the Café papote organized by the Rose en Marche association, in Guéret, has offered women suffering from breast cancer a place to meet, share and recharge their batteries.
“It’s a ritual. On Sunday evening, I say to myself: “Tomorrow morning, we are going to go see our friends on the course! » An appointment that Martine would not miss for anything in the world. This Monday morning, the door of 7 rue Joseph Ducouret opens and closes to the excitement of conversations, the smell of croissants, coffee and the smiles that spring from the sofas. It looks like a meeting between friends and that’s ultimately a bit like it.
For a year, Jacqueline has been one of the first to arrive at Café papote. “I call it my playtime. It’s good for morale,” she smiles. Here, she finds the comfort and listening that she sometimes lacks outside. At 61, she knows she will live with the disease for the rest of her life. Her breast cancer has metastasized to her bones.
A coffee and off we go
Chemotherapy, mastectomy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy, she has been through it all, but the most difficult thing undoubtedly is having made this journey alone… “I have a husband who is very pessimistic. For him, I had no chance, he already saw me dead,” she confides.
“I had to take care of myself a little mentally. »
Jacqueline (empty)
This Café Papote was the place to start taking care of yourself, where to talk, where to confide, where to let go, unwind and travel together.
The Rose en Marche association launched the idea last year, on the occasion of Pink October. “Before I was on call every day at the local and then, when I started working part-time, there was less presence at the local,” explains Marie Austin of the Rose en Marche association. People sometimes found the door closed, so we said to ourselves that we would set up this time of exchange, this Café chat, first every other week and finally every Monday! » @Julie Ho Hoa
A meeting where around ten women come together, sometimes more, sometimes less, for half an hour or several hours, where they all have cancer in common.
“I look forward to Monday morning,” smiles Martine, a bubbly sixty-year-old. To “recharge the batteries” and face injections, chemo, radiation, medical appointments, fatigue.
“We meet up, we tell each other how our week went, we understand each other because we go through the same things. I feel good afterwards, it gives me a boost. »
Martine (empty)
Kelly comes for the second time. At 37, this young mother appreciates this “comforting” moment, “which makes you think of something else”. “We give each other strength, we support each other,” adds Anaïs, 51, who regrets the lack of psychological care, this human envelopment which helps to cope with medical issues. She finally found it here.
“One morning I got off work and came straight here,” she remembers. It was in May, shortly after he learned of his cancer. The difficult milestones, the incessant questions, the unknowns, Anaïs can here share what she is going through and find answers that help her move forward on her journey.
We already knew it about coffee, but Café Chat, “it’s better than an antidepressant,” assures, next to her, Nadia, 58, who discovered Rose en Marche while passing in front of the premises on her way to at his work. When cancer “fell upon her”, she researched the association and discovered, among all its activities, the Café papote.
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A refuge without judgment or rejection
The first time she pushed the door open, “it was shortly after having the diagnosis, before starting treatment”, she didn’t really know what she was looking for. “Maybe some information, some comfort. »
“Here, everyone knows what the other is actually talking about. There is no taboo, we can let go of our emotions, something we don’t necessarily do with our loved ones because we want to protect them or because they don’t necessarily understand. The journey that I am experiencing, they are not experiencing it and outside, we encounter a lot of awkwardness. »
Nadia (empty)
“We sometimes even have more support here than in our immediate family,” recognizes Anaïs. Here, there is no embarrassment about the illness, no insistent looks at thinning hair, no hurtful words, no fear of tackling cancer head-on, of confessing one’s pain.
“At first, I didn’t dare come so I came a little late. Now, if someone asks me what I do on Monday morning, I’m taken because I really want to be here,” smiles Nadia. For her, this moment of chat is part of the path to healing and even “frankly, of the care journey”. “I find it essential. Really,” she insists.
We chat, but not necessarily about illness. “It’s a parenthesis” summarizes Anaïs, in a daily life punctuated by cancer. “We can talk about sewing, cooking, walks, children, like friends over coffee! “. But friends who share in their flesh more than a coffee, who remain despite everything that the illness changes. Character, mood, body.
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Since her operation in February 2022, Martine confides that she has “never set foot again” in the small town where she lives. She has her medication delivered by the pharmacist so as not to run into anyone, has decided to do her shopping elsewhere so as not to “be stared at, or come across people who turn their heads when you say hello” or hear “you have saw the face she has, how thin she has become, how she has gained weight, you have seen her hair.” “I’ve heard too much people talk about people who are sick. It’s hurtful, it’s demeaning. It’s horrible. » At Café papote, she knows that “there is no judgment”.
“Here, I feel good, because we know what we’re talking about, we don’t need to justify ourselves, to explain. We are in reality. We know. We can arrive crying, we can arrive tired, we can arrive having fears, having terrors, we know that here, we will be able to express it and that even if we cannot express it, we will find comfort around us anyway. It’s an airlock.”
Brigitte (empty)
Almost 60 years old, Brigitte is fighting another cancer, lymphoma. It was her friend Agnès, 64, who convinced her to come. “It feels good to talk, it allows you to vent and then when we are all together, we speak the same language. We understand each other. We are on the same wavelength,” adds the latter. “I need to talk to people who understand this journey, who understand what we can experience,” continues Brigitte. A space where “people’s stupidity, the meanness” do not penetrate, where we forget that sometimes, “we are not supported as we would like”.
These moments between “fighters”, between “warriors”, the laughter, the tears too, the exchanges, the simple pleasure of drinking tea or coffee together, they confirm, “these are things that allow us to survive”, quite simply.
Where & when? Café papote takes place every Monday from 10 a.m. at the Rose en Marche premises, 7 rue Joseph Ducouret in Guéret. Such. : 05.87.56.18.29.
Texte & photos : Julie Ho Hoa
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