“Talking about my illness is something I need. I am very surrounded but in suffering, there is a form of extreme solitude“. This Sunday, December 1, 2024, actress Émilie Dequenne spoke to the cameras of “Sept à Eight” on TF1, about the recurrence of her cancer, which she spoke about for the first time in October 2023.
“Here I go again for chemo”
“I saw my doctor to check the progress of the treatment and it turns out that unfortunately, it is not progressing well. There is a part of my cancer that responds to it and another that does not respond to it, or even progresses. The part that progresses is greater than the part that reduces. I'm off again for the chemo that I went through a little over a year ago“, she announced to Audrey Crespo-Mara. Émilie Dequenne suffers from a cancer called adrenocorticaloma, a malignant tumor located on the adrenal gland. “It is a very rare cancer, which affects one to two people in a million per year worldwide.“, explained the actress, who confides with a smile that she had done “express oncology training” in one year.
Émilie Dequenne went back a year, when the diagnosis was made. “I was terrified. I am told that it is a very rare cancer, very aggressive, extremely recurrent. I felt like I was given 6 months to live. It was violent“, she remembers, very moved. “Instantly, my world collapses, I tell myself that I am going to die, I write my will, my wishes. If I want to be buried, not buried… I still don't really know what I want anyway, but it's complicated because I don't want to simply die“.
READ ALSO: “I would never have imagined being here…”: In tears, Emilie Dequenne is overwhelmed by talking about her cancer in “C à vous”
“Deep down, I know I won't live as long as I expected. (…) I am only 43 years old. I have always dreamed of living to be at least 80 years old and falling asleep permanently in my sleep. That's what I'm asking, I'm not asking for much“, added the actress, mother of a 22-year-old daughter and married since 2014 to actor Michel Ferracci. The one who “trust medicine“recalled that for the cancer she suffers from, “we only talk about remission, we will never talk about healing“.
“I no longer work”
Émilie Dequenne, who was revealed to the general public in 1999 thanks to her role in “Rosetta”, by the Dardenne brothers, also spoke about her daily life. “I'm at home or in the hospital, help. (…) I no longer work. For intermittent workers, it’s a disaster. At the beginning, I received 20 euros gross per day to live on, I went up to 30“, she detailed. Before learning of the recurrence of her cancer, the actress was to play one of the leading roles in a film. When she announced her relapse, the director had promised her a small role. “While surfing the net, I discovered that I have been replaced“, confided the actress.
With his current treatment, approximately one “thirty“of daily medication, the actress says”fatigue more quickly and feel dizzy“, which prevents him from being able to carry out a major shoot. “I can have trouble concentrating, I can no longer read a book“, lamented Émilie Dequenne, who explained that all her projects were now “aborted or remitted“.
The actress wanted to have a word for the nursing staff at the Gustave Roussy institute, where she is cared for. “The hospital staff are just great with me (…) I am very lucky to be followed there and I hope that research for my cancer will continue to advance“, she concluded. Puremédias invites you to watch an extract from this interview above.
