the essential
Maguelone Aribaud is one of 5,000 people affected in France by oral cavity cancer. In 2022, she underwent surgery at the Oncopole in Toulouse to have part of her tongue removed which was then reconstructed from the skin of her forearm. She recounts this difficult journey and her admiration for the medical teams in a book. With the CORASSO patient association, she is following the promises of the BIOFACE research project.
“I have no problem talking about my cancer, it is not something that I chose but that I suffered. I want to shed light on ENT cancers which are not that rare but which remain unknown.” Maguelone Aribaud, 50 years old, sales representative at Radio France in Toulouse, has an insightful eye and infectious enthusiasm.
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Above all, she has easy words, the right word and has chosen to use it to talk about her cancer of the tongue. Two years after taking charge at the Oncopole in Toulouse, she self-published “Foreign Language”(1). In this story, she recounts with courage, sensitivity and humor the surgery, the reconstruction of her tongue with the skin from her forearm, the radiotherapy, the hours spent learning to swallow, chew and speak again. And the incomprehension about this cancer when it does not present the classic risk factors linked to alcohol and tobacco.
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“Leave a trace for my daughters”
“Writing was urgent, I was so angry that the crab would choose my language, I who talk a lot. As soon as the results of the biopsy, I started telling myself that, to tell the story, the writing would perhaps be the only thing that would remain for me. It was also a way to leave a mark for my daughters to whom I could not tell everything and who were 12 and 14 years old at the time”, testifies Maguelone Aribaud. ironing from balm on her now regularly dry lips.
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Now in the Occitanie volunteer team of the Corasso association which supports people affected by head and neck cancer, Maguelone also closely follows the BIOFACE university hospital research project (RHU) for post-cancer facial reconstruction. It is led by Professor Agnès Dupret-Bories, the surgeon who operated and reconstructed her tongue at the Oncopole in Toulouse. She calls her queen, Queen A. “We are in French excellence, I am fascinated by reconstruction. This project, with biomaterials in place of bones taken from the body, will provide comfort for life for patients. It is essential because our journey is complex,” concludes Maguelone Aribaud.
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