Franck’s Story

I was born on August 11, 1995, with two big brothers were waiting for me impatiently. They expect me to become the third footballer and even chose a name for me. Very quickly, I learned to walk (at 9 months), to read and write; I went back to kindergarten at two years old. My school career went very well, I loved football and playing across the country. The last year high school is coming after it I will soon be in college.

But during the summer of 2009, several migraine episodes follow one another. I do not worry, it must be the heat, sunstroke. Mid-September, my mother insists on giving me an MRI. Indeed, on the images, appear “white spots” at the level of my brain. My mother is worried but from the height of my 14 years old I tell her “I must be too smart” … just to reassure her. At this time, doctors think of inflammation of the brain (acute disseminated encephalomyelitis). A lumbar puncture will ward off multiple sclerosis. Other analyzes will rule out genetic diseases. The blood tests, scanner, radio, MRI will not reveal cancer at this time.

After three days of hospitalization for cortisone treatment injected intravenously, the inflammation was to recede. However, my health continues to deteriorate (loss of balance, nausea, headache, incontinence). Another new course of corticosteroids, nothing. Plasma exchanges are attempted. Maybe my antibodies do not accept cortisone. Several long plasmapheresis sessions do not change anything. I am always sick and my condition is getting worse. I can not walk alone, I fall out of bed, I can not use the computer anymore. New lumbar puncture, nothing. On December 2, I go under the PET SCAN, a kind of nuclear imaging. My brothers ask questions and the teacher said: “probably a gliomatosis”.

This terrible diagnosis is confirmed in mid-December by a biopsy. I have a gliomatosis, a brain cancer of undetermined origin, which takes me on December 20, 2009. During my hospitalization, I was surrounded day and night by my mother, by my brothers and my dad who took turns not to let me go.

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