A young woman from Quebec must begin the fight of her life, a few weeks before her 20th birthday, to face an inoperable brain tumor at the same time as her grandmother is carried away by the same disease, which could be partly hereditary.
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“When I learned that my daughter was going to be transferred to the same bed that my mother occupied a few days earlier at the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus, the sons touched each other. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us, ”says Anne Harvey emotionally.
Courtesy picture
Marianne Genois on the hospital bed occupied by her grandmother.
For several weeks, her 19-year-old daughter, Marianne Genois, had severe headaches that her relatives attributed to migraines. But, in mid-July, the pain was so intense that she had to go to the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus to receive adequate treatment.
That’s when he was diagnosed with a diffuse midline glioma. It is advanced and inoperable brain cancer, especially because of where it is located.
“The sky has fallen on our heads, like an accumulation of bad news. It’s one thing to bury your parents, but it’s another to bury your children, ”breathes the mother of the family.
A genetic prevalence?
Courtesy picture
Louise Gaudreault celebrating her last birthday. She died a week after her granddaughter was diagnosed with a similar incurable cancer.
A few months earlier, Marianne Genois’ grandmother herself learned that she suffered from a similar brain tumor. Louise Gaudreault finally passed away on July 24, at the age of 72, barely a week after the announcement of her granddaughter’s diagnosis.
“Yet he was given at least a year and a half with treatment. We like to think that she left earlier to take care of Marianne, ”says Mme Harvey, surrounded by the flowers that were used at her mother’s funeral the day before.
Doctors also believe that genetics could have a certain role to play in the prevalence of this disease in the family. One of their cousins also received a similar diagnosis recently.
Given the situation, Anne Harvey, who has suffered from migraines for years, must receive the results of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) within a few days to check if she has inherited this “gene”.
Head full of projects
In the meantime, her daughter is undergoing numerous chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments which aim to slow down the expansion of the tumor, even if they will never cure the 19-year-old young woman.
Despite the situation, she refuses to feel sorry for herself and says she enjoys life, surrounded by the people she loves. His relatives also refused to know the prognosis established by the doctors.
“I try to be the same Marianne as before, but I live from day to day. I have no choice, ”suggests the main interested party.
A fashion lover, she would like to take advantage of her last moments to launch her own clothing company for exceptional people or to visit haute couture cities around the world.
A fundraising campaign launched by a friend of the family will help her achieve her dreams. It will also relieve the financial stress of her mother, who had to close her daycare center to care for her and her own mother for a few months.
Diffuse midline glioma
- Also called infiltrating brainstem glioma
- Aggressive brain tumor that begins in the brainstem
- There is no cure
- Radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment in a palliative perspective
- Median overall survival is 11 months
Source: Merck Manuals and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital