After believing he had simply contracted COVID, a young father of three saw his life turned upside down when he discovered that a rapid and aggressive stage 4 cancer had taken hold all over his body in a few months.
“I didn’t believe him at all. Not that I didn’t take it seriously, but it wasn’t concrete. I didn’t feel sick. I was told that I had it in the neck, in the collarbones, the ribs, the sternum, the pelvis. It got into me, ”breathes Matthew Lacroix, 30, his spouse, Sophie Morin, at his side.
Active and in good health, the young father from Granby began with a persistent cough, accompanied by great fatigue, at the beginning of last January. Nothing to worry about: one of her two sons had just caught COVID-19 at school.
Courtesy picture
He poses with his wife, Sophie Morin, 23, and his three children, Liam, 8 (left), Jacob, 9 (center), and Lyvia, 9 months.
But, after a month of accumulating negative COVID tests with no improvement in his condition, his wife convinced him to consult. Believing in bronchitis, the doctors first prescribed him antibiotics, before ordering X-rays in February next.
These revealed that a mass of 11 cm by 6 cm had dug its way into the mediastinum of the thirties, the region of the rib cage between the lungs where the heart is located.
The diagnosis fell in March: he suffers from stage 4 lymph node cancer, which has quickly spread throughout his trunk, from the neck to the pelvis.
In a few months
But most shockingly, in October alone, he had X-rays for possible heart points. At that time, her body showed no trace of cancer.
“They were able to compare the pictures from October – where I had absolutely nothing! – with the February scan. They could see how aggressive it was,” says Mr. Lacroix.
“It was a big shock,” says the mother of her youngest child. It is a cancer that is more rare in men of his age. It’s not hereditary, he’s just really unlucky.”
Shock treatment
Without a minute to lose, in April he began a shock treatment of five chemotherapies.
“He is connected for 96 hours online and hospitalized for five days, every three weeks. Once he has completed the 96 hours [pour un premier cocktail de quatre chimiothérapies]he [en] has an hour of a different kind,” lists the 23-year-old woman.
Despite everything, the couple refuses to be defeated, even if they will have to put aside the plan to expand the family and buy a house.
“With a nine-month-old baby, you have no choice but to move forward. We don’t want to go that far. We take it one day at a time, said M.me Morin admiring his spouse. You are much more positive than me.
“I have a good feelingand I’m sticking to that,” he concludes softly.
►A crowdfunding campaign was set up on GoFundMe to help them get through the ordeal.