Monday August 2, 2010, Institut Gustave-Roussy, in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne). At the age of 29, Sabrina Le Bars asked her mother to hide a mirror in her hospital room for a few days. After fourteen hours of surgery for head and neck cancer, she says she doesn’t want to see him “broken mouth”.
Thirteen years later, Saturday December 16, 2023, in Vincennes (Val-de-Marne). In a little black cocktail dress, the same, with a warm smile, celebrates the Corasso Association, founded in 2014 with another patient, Christine Folkembourg, on the advice of two specialists in this pathology, François Janot, surgeon of Gustave-Roussy, and Anne-Catherine Beglin, anatomopathologist at Foch Hospital, Suresnes (Hautes-de-Seine). At the time, people who underwent surgery for these little-known cancers that could invade the sinuses, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, etc. were about to be removed from seclusion. “A patient had just committed suicideSabrina Le Bars recalls. After such an operation, everything that the surgeon does is visible from the outside. The voice changes, we touch identity. Everyone must learn to reconstruct a new image. »
The private group “Coraso Let’s Exchange” launched by the association on Facebook has already borne fruit: during this December evening, on screens decorated in pop colors, the testimonies of patients who are no longer hidden. Some of them in 2018 “What’s my face? », a punch operation where they announced the title of Johnny Hallyday, in front of the camera. “Sabrina Le Bars broke a taboo by revolutionizing communication around this unsociable cancer.Estimates Sylvie Boisramé, director of the Training and Research Unit (UFR) of Odontology in Western Brittany in Brest. The association’s actions have already changed the population’s view of patients. »
The first signs of terrible banality
Last September, this university professor and hospital oral surgery practitioner, along with his ENT colleagues, organized a screening day, where Corasso’s secretary, Emily Kerr, spoke to future dental surgeons. The 26-year-old was diagnosed with cancer in 2020, she says. “After five fruitless medical consultations where I came away with a prescription for cough syrup”. Sabrina Le Bars wants to increase the number of volunteers talking to health professionals. “Visual testimony is more effective than theoryShe said that. It unfiltered often brings out the very visible results of passive, passive and delayed diagnoses. So much so that such moments are hard to forget. »
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