Suffering from a rare head cancer, Gwendoline cannot be treated in France

At 24, Gwendoline has been battling a tumor for a year. His cancer, which is very rare, can only be treated in specialized centers which do not exist in France. An expensive treatment and trip for the young woman that hundreds of Internet users have chosen to co-finance.

It’s a little ball, right in the middle of the head, “deep in the sinuses”. An inoperable bone tumor called chondrosarcoma of the clivus. Gwendoline discovered this rare cancer, somewhat by chance, a little over a year ago, in the summer of 2023, as Actu Bordeaux reveals. “I was very tired, I felt dizzy, but I didn’t really worry about it”explains Gwendoline.

Until an illness in October pushed her to look into her health. “I was at work when I felt unwell. The doctor wanted to do a general check-up and “that’s when we detected the tumor for the first time”explains Gwendoline.

For a year, the young Bordeaux woman heard that this lesion was a sort of benign “cyst”. “In August 2024, I did a biopsy and that’s when the doctor told me that it was a cancer whose evolution was extremely unusual”remembers Gwendoline.

The announcement is a shock that the young woman does not realize at first. “I didn’t really realize it. For me, if I had cancer, I would be worse off than thissays the young woman. However, I tell myself that if I didn’t feel sick before the announcement, there was no reason for this to be the case afterwards.”

We’re not going to make ourselves sick before we really are.

Gwendoline,

involvement of a chondrosarcoma of the clivus

Behind his smile and his “desire to live”, Gwendoline sometimes confides her pain: hallucinations, “electric shocks in the face” and dizziness, caused by compression of the optic nerve by the bone tumor. Symptoms which pushed the young woman to stop working a year ago.

If it is impossible to remove your tumor due to its location“in the middle of lots of organs and vital elements of the body”, she can be “necrosed” thanks to hadrontherapy, a more effective method “condensed and intense” that radiotherapy. “There are three types of rays: photons used in particular for breast cancer, stronger protons and carbon ions, which I need to necrotize my tumorGwendoline list. To use them, you need a machine that is more or less a particle accelerator.”

She’s my roommate for life. It will still compress my nerves, but we will be able to control its size and therefore the symptoms.

Gwendoline

Young Bordeaux woman suffering from cancer

Advanced technology unavailable in France: around the world, a handful of centers offer this method including Japan, Italy, Germany and Austria. At the Bergonié center in Bordeaux, specializing in the fight against cancer, where she is being followed, Gwendoline’s doctor advises her to go to the CNAO, in Pavia, Italy.

His first appointment is scheduled for the end of November. “I just learned that there will be a second one. The first was to carry out simulations to study the path that the rays will have to take”. Her treatment costs around 25,000 euros, which the young woman risks having to advance, before reimbursement by Social Security. At the same time, she also has to pay for plane tickets, “or train, if I am not allowed to take the plane”as well as accommodation for her and her accompanying family.

Colossal expenses for this young worker, unsustainable even with the help of Gwendoline’s mother and her best friend. Both decided to launch an online fundraiser to help the young woman make these two journeys and hope for some form of healing. “I didn’t want the pot in the first place, I hadn’t told anyone about my illness, but I have worried and loving parents”explains the young woman, still surprised by the solidarity.

It’s crazy! It’s humanity that resurfaces through all of this!

Gwendoline,

Chondrosarcoma of the clivus

Six days after its creation, Internet users donated 8,270 euros out of the 10,000 euros, “the minimum” necessary to make these two trips to Italy, as well as the treatment. “My partner took unpaid leave to be able to accompany me each time, because we don’t know what state I will be in after the sessions”explains Gwendoline.

Today, she wants to use the media coverage of her story to shed light on her illness. “On the internet, there was absolutely nothing, no articles. We feel alone in these moments. But since I spoke out, some people who are sick like me have contacted me and said they felt the same wayexplains Gwendoline. So if it can help others and say hello to people so that they feel less alone”

Once the first two sessions have been completed, the young woman will be followed in France. On the program: “MRIs of the head and thorax where the cancer can mutate, every three months for two years, then once a year until the end of my life”.

After her preparation session, the young woman should receive her first rays on December 11, “a few days before Christmas”, Breathes Gwendoline, like a fragile wish.