“I have three tumors, I am at a very advanced stage. It’s a bit of a cold shower. We’re getting a real slap in the face. » Ten years ago, Mélanie Chicault’s life changed. Diagnosis: breast cancer.
A tsunami in the life of this dynamic Frontenaysienne, then 37 years old, employed in insurance. “Everything happened very quickly. » This Friday, October 4, 2024, a pink ribbon attached to the jacket, she recounts, pell-mell, this pain felt in the chest one summer while gardening, the first inadequate care, the emergency biopsy, the incomprehension, until at the call of his GP who, seriously, told him the news. “There, I understand that something is happening”she remembers. And, on September 29, 2014, her left breast was removed, then the start of a year of chemotherapy.
“You must learn to move forward”
Today, Mélanie Chicault is in remission. But cancer is now part of his daily life. “It changes a whole life. You can never be the person you were before. You must learn to move forward. » Move forward. To move. Stay moving. Throughout the interview, the same words keep coming back to his mouth.
A way for the bubbly forty-year-old, who says she lives with “a sword of Damocles above the head”, to get control of his life. “I’m learning to live with it. My philosophy is that cancer has already taken a lot from my life. I’ll try to take back what I can. »
She admits: it was a long road to get there. And it is far from finished. For a long time, she had difficulty talking about her illness. Never to the press. “Talking about my story is the first time I’ve done it today”she assures, with an easy smile and frank laughter.
Over the years she had to learn to tame this body “lots of scars”. Following her cancer, she chose to proceed preventively with the removal of her second breast and a hysterectomy. In 2022, she also had her breast reconstruction removed, which she now realizes she did more “for the eyes of others” only for herself. “Anyway, at one point, I mourned this chestshe says. She has caused me too much harm. »
“There is something behind it”
To get back on track, she relied on “optimism” constant from her husband, and “luck” that she had the power one day “bounce back”and return to work as an insurance manager. “It helped me a lot. » She found sport, too. A way to break inactivity and solitude, when the world continues to spin around you.
That’s how, in the gym, she reconnected with Isabelle Deschamps, also a breast cancer sufferer, and who in 2020 will found the support association for women with the disease Les PrinSEINSses. Last July, they climbed Mont Blanc together. Long in the shadows, Mélanie Chicault now actively participates in the life of the association, which organizes the La Niortaise pink march on Sunday October 6, in Niort.
She now shares her experience with many women supported by the association. “Today, I know it’s important to talk about it. Because yes, there are moments that are not easy, but there is something behind them. You have to hang on. We have to fight. »
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