She wanted “ leave a trace ». Clémentine Vergnaud was just 31 years old when she passed away on December 23, 2023, after a year-and-a-half battle with a rare form of bile duct cancer.
A journalist at Radio France, the young woman spoke about her life facing illness in a podcast in 16 ten-minute episodes which has accumulated more than two million listens, generating an immense movement of sympathy towards her, and sending thousands of messages. Invited on numerous occasions in the media, she shared her experience, undoubtedly contributing to changing the public’s view of people suffering from incurable illnesses.
However, Clémentine Vergnaud did not derive any glory from her sudden notoriety. “ I’m thirty years old and I didn’t want to write this text ”, we read at the beginning of the Clementine’s Diarythe story of his fight against cancer, published this October 4 in Le Seuil.
Seamless support
From the moment she discovered her illness in June 2022 until the weeks preceding her death, Clémentine Vergnaud recounts her anxieties, her doubts, her fears, the hospital treatments and their inevitable side effects, but also the evolution of her own view on cancer, life, death, until, once the denial phase has passed, being able to “ to mourn oneself ».
Taken from the podcast and texts written by the journalist, Clementine’s diary is also the story of the unfailing support of his family and his partner Grégoire Lecalotwhom she married in her hospital room, and who completed the diary with a few additional pages after her death.
It is also a dive into the twists and turns of the medical journey, with its share of wonderful encounters and disappointments. The doctors who understand what she is going through and show empathy, but also the others, those who stick to protocol and do not listen to the patient when they do not understand the symptoms from which she is suffering.
Relief to have “ finally the right to let go »
« Being sick is a full-time job », also writes Clémentine Vergnaud to relate, not without annoyance, the countless administrative annoyances with which she found herself confronted: an Ameli bug which forces her to claim the payments to which she is entitled, the impersonal reminders from Social Security , or even the unsuitability of the household assistance offered, constituted additional mental and financial burdens.
In the last pages, Clémentine Vergnaud expresses her relief at having “ finally the right to let go ». « Hearing from the doctors that it would be a mistake to hold on to this point did me a lot of good. “, she almost rejoices when the only options left to her are how to choose where she will die.
Poignant account of the experience of a lifetime », Clementine’s diary benefits from a first printing of 30,000 copies. The copyright of the book will be donated to the Clémentine Vergnaud Fund against cholangiocarcinoma and the Association for the study of cancers and affections of the biliary tract (Acabi), which will launch in 2025 a thesis scholarship financed by donations received on behalf of the journalist.
