Over the past four years, the DD Marie-Anne Archambault had a patient who today made all of Quebec cry: Karl Tremblay. As a treating doctor, she accompanied the cowboy through all the twists and turns of his battle against cancer. Today, with the agreement of the spouse of the deceased, Marie-Annick Lépine, she would like to salute, in an open letter sent to the Dutythe greatness of the man who became, in death, a monument.
On the other end of the line, the doctor is still emotional. “I really needed to cry a lot,” she explains with sadness. Almost four years ago, she had the odiousness to announce to Karl Tremblay a cruel diagnosis: metastatic, inoperable prostate cancer.
“Breaking this news that completely shatters lives is always the most difficult thing I have to do. In Karl’s case, it was all the more difficult because not only was he a 44-year-old dad to whom I was announcing that his life was ruined, but he was also the icon, the monument , the voice. »
At that time, the singer was already an idol. “I was a huge fan. It was very difficult for me to be both an admirer and a doctor who wanted to remain objective: I felt so invested, remembers DD Archambault. Over time, I learned to know the man beyond the artist. He was an exceptional person: I am truly privileged to have been able to care for him and know him. »
A death that no one expected
Always humble, “very shy”, the dashing giant still embodies courage in the eyes of the doctor today. “His illness was disgusting from the start,” she emphasizes. She was hateful and unfair as all cancers are, but this was especially true for Karl who was so young. Despite all the indignities that this disease inflicts, I have never, ever seen him get discouraged. He had a strength that I find difficult to describe, a strength that even I sometimes had difficulty drawing on to continue. »
Thursday evening, DD Archambault communed on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, surrounded by hundreds of grieving fans who found, in the songs of the Cowboys Fringants sung in chorus, so many shoulders on which to place their sorrow. She, incognito in the crowd, had just accompanied Karl Tremblay in his last breath, struck by a death that no one expected so soon.
“The reason why he entered the hospital was not to die: it was to get back on his feet and start again on another project,” emphasizes the DD Archambault. It was not expected, such a rapid departure. I don’t think we could have saved him, but I think we could have prolonged his life further. The illness had its own plan: it got ahead of us. »
Karl Tremblay was still scheduled to receive radiotherapy treatments on Friday. “We had to irradiate it, control the pain, then continue,” remembers the doctor. But things got away from us. The illness, the suffering, the pain was so extreme, so unspeakable, so unbearable for any human being who had to endure it, that it became overwhelming to the point of bringing him down. It was this pain that made this great giant collapse: his head and his heart still wanted to, but it was the body that no longer followed. »
“He wanted Quebec so much”
This suffering accompanied Karl Tremblay on stage. “I was the dull doctor who told him that the stage, the tour and the chemo didn’t go well together,” recalls Marie-France Archambault. He always managed to make me lie: the stage treated him more than any treatment. »
The singer wanted to give everything to his audience, despite the worried disapproval of his caregiver. Karl Tremblay had refused to let his cancer cancel a European tour: it was ultimately the pandemic which got the better of this long – and exhausting – trip to the other side of the Atlantic. “I told him that it couldn’t be, that he couldn’t go on stage. He told me: “well yes I can, we transfuse, we take a little bit of decadron, then we go.” He was right: his shows got better one after the other. He proved that his way of doing things was better than mine. »
In Quebec, a few days away from delivering his body and soul to an audience of 90,000 people gathered in the wake of the Summer Festival, Karl Tremblay was still hospitalized for extreme pain. “He wanted Quebec, he wanted Quebec so much. I told her again: “you can’t go there, it’s impossible,” the doctor remembers. When I saw that a storm canceled the show, I saw it a bit like the pandemic that had saved us from the Europe tour in 2020, a bit like a sign from the sky that protected my patient. Once again, he received a transfusion, he went on stage and he made me lie: he was doing things that were incompatible with life on paper, he was going beyond the limits. »
The wave of love that has been flooding towards her since Wednesday, coming from the four corners of the French-speaking world, particularly moves the doctor. “Karl himself would never have claimed to arouse so much love. I wrote to Marie-Annick that this wave is proportional to the wave of pain that everyone feels. His death shocked us all, his family and me. We were in a nightmare and we wake up to this unexpected and unsuspected response of love. »
“I hope,” concludes Dr. Archambault, “that those close to them will heal their pain a little thanks to this condition. Even though it hurts, I feel blessed to have been able to care for not only a monument, but someone so important in my life. »