Diary of a breast

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Tuesday 4 March 2014

The writer you should be reading in 2014

Diary of a breast

            Béatrice Maillard-Chaulin lives in the south of France—Marseilles--where she leads a happy life. Although she had a cancer relapse in 2009, since then she has been free of the disease. She lives every single day of her life with great intensity. She continues traveling around the world: Most recently to India and Patagonia.

            Thanks to her ability to laugh at herself and her ability to talk about cancer from a personal perspective, she develops a strong bond with other patients and often intercedes in encounters between physicians and patients. Indeed she has led many initiatives aimed at improving the quality of life of patients, as well as imporoving their relationships with medical staffs. Maillard-Chaulin explains to patients how, through humor, she transformed a solitary combat into a team sport, and was thus able to turn people around her into teammates.

            She stresses that patients must play an active role if they want to build a truly winning team with their doctors. In addition she insists that patients must keep on top of scientific breakthroughs that could help them.

            As an example she explains how, thanks to a friend living in England, she learned of a CyberKnife—a Robotic Radiosuregery System—installed in the south of France capable of neutralizing the metastasis that caused her relapse.

            Shockingly she had never heard about this treatment in France! It has been three years since she was treated. Since then, she is no longer suffering from this metastasis and most importantly… she is alive!

            This author is passionate about sharing the stories of what she went through during her initial bout and then again when she received the diagnosis that the cancer had returned. Maillard-Chaulin’s journey—yes! Ultimately it’s a joyful one—full of humor that also wryly examines incompetence, financial misdeeds, incorrect information, even Social Security frauds. To be continued…


Thursday 5 February 2009

Beatrice Maillard-Chaulin moves to Marseille

Beatrice Maillard-Chaulin moves to Marseille

Beatrice Maillard-Chaulin’s old dream to move to Marseille finally came true: she returned to the southern France of her youth.

She found a real marseillaise-like little house nestled in a nest of verdure, at a walking distance from the Conseil General (council of French département) in the 13th arrondissement (métro Saint-Just).

She still dedicates herself to the help of sick hospitalized children in the region of Marseilles, this time as a volunteer for the AJMC charity, which aim is to help young sick and convalescent people.


She has already taken part in many events thanks to the League against Cancer (Limoges, Rouen, Auch, Nantes, Annonay ,...) and this link which makes enriching and moving encounters possible makes her happy.

She greatly appreciates these encounters with people and especially likes the warm feeling that comes out of it. 


Monday 2 February 2009

Postface of the Pocket edition

Seven years ... seven years which passed at the speed of light! The duck is still alive and pleased to be so. And yet, at this time, my chances to survive were not highly rated. What did change in the end? Everything!

To say that I am filled with serenity and joy of living would be an euphemism. Apart from the regular check-ups at the Institut Curie, on which I have absolutely no influence (once they have a client, they hold on to her/him), the rest of my life was simply and naturally reorganized in a completly different way.

It's as if I had suddenly discovered that my apartment was nice and all, but really not functional and rather badly-lit, stuffy or noisy, and that I had therefore decided to redecorate the rooms, to create new spaces, new openings and to dump the disruptive elements. In a word, to change everything from floor to ceiling without changing my soul. 

That's what I just did with my life. I got straight to the point by thinking to myself that I had come within a hair's breadth of death. That danger was far from being warded off and that if I wanted to live happier, better , and even in a different way, there would be some painful choices to make. Serenity is dead simple but still, you have to do something special to get it!

From now on, if a problem occurs to me, the first thing I ask myself is: "can we die from it?" Apart from the ridicule which can sometimes kill savagely, if the answer is yes, I launch the ORSEC plan. However if the answer is no, I calm down by telling myself that there are certainly worst things than the ones I am experiencing or dealing with, and so, that there really is no reason to panic. This gives me an incredible strength, which even surprises me sometimes. I feel like I’m a steamroller. Absolutely no thing can stop me. Even when there's a very few chances for me to succeed in what I undertake,  it doesn't matter. I try anyway ... and pretty often ... quite surprisingly.... It works!! Nerve gives me wings. I even feel like I’m influencing François, who is now taking initiatives that he would have never dared taking before, given the low success rate expected. My enthusiasm is contagious. I know that sometimes I’m doing too much. My friends and relatives keep telling me that I should calm down, because if I don't, I'll just tire myself (or is it themselves?) out. It has been going on for seven years, when fatigue will come, I swear I'll calm down.

Another thing, and far from the least important one, is that I'm much more comfortable with sick or disabled people. This comes at the right moment since I'm now working with new technologies and hospitalized children. Having, myself, lived with the regular assaults of this rather unpleasant snake that is cancer may be the reason why I feel close to these children who, in turn, have to fight against the disease. For example, when I have to cross the intensive care unit of a big hospital I regularly go to in order to visit a young teenager who became tetraplegic following a hand ball accident (indeed, it doesn’t only happen to others!), The only things which guide me are his smile, his beautiful eyes and the kindness that comes out of him. I forget everything else. We all mobilized to get an Internet access in his intensive care room. We may not be able to change his future, but we changed his everyday life. And now it's him who gives us strength. At least that's how I feel. I am still optimistic concerning the fast improvement of medicine, and I hope that one day we’ll be able to help the boy out and to give him at least a little autonomy. I feel that I am lucky to be able to ignore all the off-putting aspects of this anthill which surrounds us, as well as being able not to take any account of the dependence of this teenager, in order to think exclusively positively. And so much the better! Yes, disease changed me.

All this does not prevent me from trembling like all my friends at the sight of the slightest bump that could evoke a possible metastasis. I have no  miracle cure for this stress. If there was one, I think we would know. I simply try to prevent the anxiety from creeping durably in my mind when this type of misadventure happens. Then, without being in the utmost of hypochondria, I make the first move and I start the necessary tests. Just to know, for example, whether it is a hip osteoarthritis or a bone metastasis which makes me suffer. When the radiologist tells me that it's a good osteoarthritis crisis, the only thing I want to do is to throw my arms around his neck. Not sure that he would understand it the right way if I actually did that.

I'll always remember how kind were the people who took care of me at the Curie Institut, and who, for some of them, have become great friends (Sister Geneviève, Father Noël...). I know that if one day, things were to turn out badly for me, I will be followed to the end, with no intensive medication or unnecessary suffering. Only dignity. A big weight off my shoulders.

But for now, we're not in that situation. François, Garuss and I are living happily, and we try to share this happiness with all our beloved. And this means a lot of people but... love means giving without limits!


JOURNAL D'UN SEIN - Pocket version

5.40 € Out of stock

Monday 5 January 2009

Didier VAN CAUWELAERT, Goncourt 1994

... I think we didn’t talk enough about Beatrice, about what she brings over with her book, the strength of life she shows through humour, through the seizure of a power held until then by the disease, and even the dialogue established with disease when she tells her cancer: You won't kill me, I 'm going to give you nicknames, that's the power of speech and we're going to talk and it's going to work. People must be aware of it.

The want for life, as well as laughter, are the most stimulating things. There’s noth­ing better than laughter and love...”

That is why I hope it's going to be a bestseller, and be published very quickly in a pocket version.
Didier VAN CAUWELAERT,
to Béatrice MAILLARD-CHAULIN, ÇA SE DISCUTE on FRANCE 2, May 3 2000 & on TV 5, September 12 2000.

 

Didier van Cauwelaertwas born in Nice in 1960. Playwright, he also wrote numerous comics, scripts and dialogues for cinema and TV( dialogue of "The Murdered House” by G. Lautner), as well as novels. Translated into thirty languages or so, his novels often exceed the one hundred thousand copies in France. Didier van Cauwelaert also is the author of a story, "Madame et ses flics". Among the plays he wrote: "L'Astronome" (rewarded Prix du théâtre de L'Académie française 1983) ; "Le Nègre" ; "Noces de sable" (1995). His adaptation of Marcel Aymé's short story, "Le Passe-Muraille", won the 1997 Molière for best musical. Didier van Cauwelaert was awarded the Grand Prix Théâtre de l'Académie française for his whole work.


Friday 5 December 2008

The painting on the cover: The Dream

Painted in 1932 by Pablo Picasso, The Dream shows Marie-Thérèse Walter's portrait, the painter's mistress.- 130 X 97 cm - Oil painting

It was sold $ 48402500 by auction to Steve Wynn at Christie's, New York, in 1997. Steve Wynn is a billionnaire from Las Vegas who recently had to abandon all hopes for selling the Picasso, after having pierced it with his elbow. The agreement he had just concluded would have made of this painting the most expensive painting in the world. The price agreed was of U.S. $ 139M. The most expensive painting record is held by the Portait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I painted by Klimt, at the price of $ 135M US. The Huffington Post blog relates that the incident occurred while Wynn was showing the painting dating from 1932 to his guests in his office in Las Vegas. The American scriptwriter, Nora Ephron, is said to have witnessed the scene. Rumour has it that the billionaire suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease of the retina which affects the peripheral vision.

 


JOURNAL D'UN SEIN - Béatrice Maillard-Chaulin

JOURNAL D'UN SEIN - Béatrice Maillard-Chaulin

15.00 € Buy now

Saturday 6 September 2008

encounters, articles...

Journal d'un sein was translated into Spanish as Diario de un pecho

Letter from Gemma Andújar Moreno, translator of
Journal d'un sein to Béatrice Maillard-Chaulin

You are absolutely right when you say that it's a small world... In Spanish, we even say that "el mundo es un pañuelo" (a handkerchief). I was very pleased to receive your mail, because now that I translated your book it's as if you were part of my family!

The translation of your text was really exciting, and of course, It was a real fun, but you also made me think about how important "little things" were when you were having a hard time (and it's a shame that we forget them too often).

In this sense, I can tell you that without my knowing of it you became to me an example to follow. Actually, we all have a "Marcel" in our lifes, either a disease or some difficult situation, and the little things are probably what saves us. At times like that, I think of you.

Concerning translation, it's true that humour is perceived differently from one country to another, but after all, you are talking about feelings in this story, and feelings are universal. Therefore, there is always a way to express the nuances of the text. I hope that my work will be equal to your story. I also work with extracts from your book during my translation classes, with my students, and I'm promoting your work to friends and family. I can even tell you that you already  have a little fan club here in Barcelone, whose president is my mother!

I thank you very much for the bravery you had to share your story with me in such a special way. If one day you come to Barcelone, don't hesitate to contact me: I would be more than happy to show you the excellence of  white Spanish wines.

yours sincerily


Gemma


Discover Journal d'un sein through press article

A bit of humour and tenderness

In Canada

I am convinced that we can laugh at everything.


Friday 1 August 2008

The Saint-Bris

Saint Bris

Region: Bourgogne(French administrative region)

Production area: located about ten kilometers southeast from Auxerre, specifically within the tons of Chitry, Irancy, Quenne, Saint Bris Le Vineux et Vincelottes and in the administrative department of the Yonne.

Classified as: AOC communale.
Decree of 2003/01/10
The provisions of the Articles of the Decree of 1974/08/05 on the Sauvignon de Saint Bris is repealed.

- Area under production: just over 100 hectares
- Grape varieties:
White: Sauvignon,
Gray: sauvignon.
- white wine only
- It can be drunk: young, 3 years maximum.
- Ideal temperature to enjoy it: between 8 and 10 °C.

to be savoured with: a grilled andouillette or scallop with noilly


The Saint-Bris


Sunday 1 June 2008

Useful links

http://www.nicoledelepine.fr/
www.marrainescancerdusein.ch/partage/pages_html/lectures.html - 8k -

http://www.astrotheme.fr/portraits/gM5G4RYPqrRF.htm

LIGUE CONTRE LE CANCER  
14 rue Corvisart
75013 PARIS
web : www.ligue-cancer.net <http://www.ligue-cancer.net/>
Tel : 0810 111 101 (prix d’un appel local)

INCA (Institut National du Cancer)
52, avenue André Morizet
92513 Boulogne Billancourt Cedex
Web : http://www.e-cancer.fr/ <http://www.e-cancer.fr/>
Tel : 33 (0)1 41 10 50 00

FEDERATION NATIONALE DES CENTRES DE LUTTE CONTRE LE CANCER
101, rue de Tolbiac - 75654 PARIS Cedex 13
Tel : 01 44 06 80 80      
Web : http://www.fnclcc.fr/ <http://www.fnclcc.fr/>    

JEUNES SOLIDARITE CANCER                   
14 rue Corvisart
75013 Paris
Web : http://www.jscforum.net/ <http://www.jscforum.net/>
Tel : 01 53 55 24 00

EUROPA DONNA – FORUM France (Coalition Européenne contre le cancer du sein)
14, rue Corvisart
75013 Paris  
Web : www.europadonna.org <http://www.europadonna.org/>
Tel : 01 44 30 07 66

ETINCELLE (Association pour l’accueil et le bien-être pour les femmes atteintes d'un cancer du sein)
 27 bis avenue Victor Cresson
 92130 ISSY-LES-MOULINEAUX
 Web : http://www.etincelle.asso.fr <http://www.etincelle.asso.fr/>
 Tel : 01 44 30 03 03  

FEDERATION NATIONALE DES COMITES FEMININS POUR LE DEPISTAGE DES CANCERS
16, boulevard Saint Germain
75005 Paris.
Tel : 0 871 594 223
Web : http://comitedepistagecance.free.fr <http://comitedepistagecance.free.fr/>

ASSOCIATION LOUIS CARLESIMO (Association d’aide aux enfants et aux familles victimes de maladies graves)
60 Avenue Aristide Briand
91550 Paray-Vieille-Poste  
Web : www.asso-louis-carlesimo.com <http://www.asso-louis-carlesimo.com/>
Tél. : 01 69 38 97 69

HORIZON CANCER   (écoute, aide et soutien)
80-82 rue Henri Barbusse
93370 Montfermeil
Tel.: 01 43 32 79 77
Web : http://www.cicos.org/horizoncancer/ <http://www.cicos.org/horizoncancer/>

LAURETTE FUGAIN (Information sur le don de plaquettes et aide à la recherche sur les maladies du sang)
99-103, rue de Sèvres
75 006 Paris
Web : http://www.laurettefugain.org/ <http://www.laurettefugain.org/>

Association A.M.E.T.I.S.T. (Aide aux Malades En Traitements Individualisés en Spécialité Tumorale)
SOS cancer des enfants
28 rue Georges Ducerf
93700 DRANCY
Tel : 01.48.32.09.05
Web : http://www.ametist.org <http://www.ametist.org/>

A CHACUN SON EVEREST (Réalisation de rêves d’enfants malades)
1 rue Camilles Des mouslins
92 Issy-les-Moulineaux
Tel : 01 55 00 42 38
Web : www.achacunsoneverest.com <http://www.achacunsoneverest.com/>

VIVRE COMME AVANT
14 rue Corvisart
75013 Paris
01 53 55 25 26

L’EMBELLIE
 29 bld Henri IV
 75004 Paris
Tel : 01 42 74 36 33
Web : www.embellieboutique.com <http://www.embellieboutique.com/>

NATYB


Tuesday 5 February 2008

In the book Cancer du sein by Yashar Hirshaut and for french edition the Professor K.B. Clough.

Béatrice Maillard-Chaulin prefaced the book Cancer du sein.

Many oncologists refer to cancer as "tunnel". They say that they help us to go through it, towards a possible recovery. I do not completely agree with this image of the underground passage.

When you're driving on a highway and you reach a tunnel, you usually see a few  roadsigns like "switch on your dipped-beam headlamps", "reduce your speed". In short, anything to help you getting ready!

As for breast cancer, you pretty often enter the tunnel without any physical or moral preparation. Provided one drives a little too fast, the shock is even greater.

Everything rushes at the start of this obstacle course. There's a mass arrival of good tips. There's the good friend who has known Professor So-and-so's cousin very well, who himself is quite familiar with the brother-in-law of .... there is the other friend who knows a clairvoyant, .... there's the neighbour whose mother died 20 years ago from a breast cancer, there is ... .. there is....

There is, in the end, a pretty tough crisis to manage while being surrounded by advisers of all kinds, having difficulties finding the way, and having to make clear, quick and sometimes irreversible decisions. Not easy to deal with all this!

 

This is the book that I would have liked to find on my way the day I started to fight against the breast cancer which struck me, 8 years ago. And yet, no one can say that I lacked of information or care from the medical team who I had decided to trust and to whom I confided, during the treatment time, my poor wounded little body.

 

The rub is that there is often a serious gap between the pieces of information that you are given and those that you actually understand. Let's say that it's both a matter of time and mood. When a doctor explains something to you, you're not necessarily in the right state of mind to fully understand it. As for me, I'll always remember the day when Dr. Clough told me that my cancer was much more serious than he had expected and that my breast needed to be removed most urgently. That day, I felt like my neurones had brutally become fossilized. The nice Dr Clough could have explained to me anything he would have wanted, I couldn't understand anymore! It was the day after, or the following day that I wanted answers to the questions I was finally asking to myself.  Except that, my interlocutor was no longer there to give me answers, unfortunately!

 

Also, there are those who want to know as much as possible about their disease, and those who decided that they'd rather not fill their mind with technical details that doesn't seem essential to them. It takes all sorts to make a world. This book enables us to make our choice and to go "shopping" as we please in this "information supermarket".

 

 Through this approach, I feel like I'm finding again this respect of my freedoms which I experienced in the relationship I had with the team who took care of me. Never was I infantilized or deprived of responsibility. I might have been advised and surrounded, but I was the one toremain in control. Thanks to these "new-wave" doctors' behaviour, I was able to play an active role in this struggle we carried on together, and I am very proud of this. I'd like to thank them very much.

I have now two wishes to express. The first is that research made such progress that this book quickly became obsolete and that a new edition gave us even more hope. The second is that doctors like Dr. Krishna Clough or the other doctors who I met around him were cloned as quickly as possible so that all my hasslemates (past, present or future) could also meet them on their way. It's all I wish to them! That's how solidarity works!




Béatrice Maillard-Chaulin
author of « Journal d’un sein » ( "Diary of a Breast")