“In the face of cancer, protect the scope of certain messages”

Becoming a caregiver when your wife learns that she has breast cancer: this is a question that the spouse does not ask in these terms. Firstly because supporting the patient seems natural to her. And also, above all, because the illness does not reflect the image we have of disability, physical deterioration or loss of autonomy which accompany other illnesses and which require constant support. Because in fact, we don’t always understand how debilitating the announcement and treatment of cancer can be.

And yet…: “All studies show that family support is the most important determinant of anxiety-depressive syndromes in patients, we really need to involve the family as much as possible”recalls Professor Mahasti Saghatchian, oncologist specializing in breast cancer.

“Be present at all stages”

For Nicolas, 47 years old today, it was very spontaneously that he placed himself, after the announcement of his wife, Laure’s, cancer, “from a perspective which was that of supporting her, of knowing what had to be done, of being present in all these stages at a time when she was not necessarily able to integrate all the information which were provided to him, including, in the face of cancer, by providing him with the scope of certain messages”.

“The importance of the caregiver’s presence also lies in their ability not to let themselves be overwhelmed by the word cancer”he explains. Including when the treatments cause what remains an inseparable mark of the disease, hair loss. “When we started talking to Laure about the possibility of wearing a wig, we went together to a meeting in a surprising place, in a very beautiful building, a place a little unrelated to this pathology, to choose what hair, what cut, which was a way of integrating what was going to happen but also of experiencing something other than the hospital that we already frequented quite a bit”says Nicolas.

At the heart of the caregiver’s role, the view of the sick person

But above all, he and his wife chose to truly share this always considered psychologically very painful consequence of chemotherapy. “We wanted to avoid Laure ending up with her hair starting to fall out and being alone at that time”. So the couple made a radical decision: to voluntarily shorten what remained of the patient’s hair, to speed up this inevitable physical transformation. “We did this together, trying to do it in a fairly lively, almost funny way.”

Almost an anecdote in the ordeal they shared but which refers, concerning the role of the caregiver, particularly when it is a spouse, to the far from negligible subject of the way we look at the sick person. “The question of her femininity that my wife could find through my gaze was questioned for a moment… even if it remained in fact very far from my priorities”recognizes Nicolas.