2024-01-02 18:00:00
The distance from the hospital, the engagement, the first day of school and a new move near Saugues… The horizon of the family of the twins Lou and Eléna has finally cleared up.
“Dad made the house. » At 3 and a half years old, Lou is a talkative little girl who is delighted to welcome someone into her home. The family of twins Lou and Éléna, suffering from leukemia diagnosed at the age of 4 months, have been living in a new cocoon for several weeks, 3 minutes from Saugues. A return to the origins after a move next to the Estaing site, within the Clermont-Ferrand university hospital center, where the girls are still followed today.
The dad, Grégory, transformed the old attic of a farmhouse into a cozy nest. A new home for a new start with Marion, the mother, on a permanent contract after a professional reconversion, and Grégory who will sign an employment contract in a few days. Grégory, Marion, Lou and Eléna pose, on New Year’s Eve, before moving on to 2024. Photo sent by the family.
Back to school last September
We left the family with very bad news at the end of 2021, a year experienced as an “emotional elevator”. Following a first CAR-T cell treatment received in the spring, the twins suffered a relapse at the end of summer. The illness had returned to Lou and it had transferred to Éléna. The girls had been put back on chemo in preparation for a bone marrow transplant. Lou reacted very well and was transplanted at the end of October. But after two weeks of treatment, Éléna’s illness had progressed, pushing the medical profession to announce the worst to her parents. After “three days spent crying”, Marion and Grégory decided to continue the chemotherapy initially planned for 35 days. Two weeks later, the disease was gone, allowing for a transplant on December 1st. For two years, Éléna has been in remission.
Your daughters are like mine. I will do anything to save them
However, a problem that occurred during the removal of Lou’s catheter plunged her into an induced coma for 15 days. “The teacher hugged me and said, ‘You know, your daughters are like mine. I will do anything to save them.” » At the end of February 2022, everything was better. A big party was organized for the twins’ 2nd birthday with around fifty people gathered very close to Saugues, including families met at the hospital. Everyone participated in a lantern release to say “Goodbye” to cancer.
Then came summer, a good time to go on vacation. During the wedding of a friend’s couple, Grégory took advantage of the bride’s bouquet toss to propose to Marion. The family was swimming in complete happiness. But the twins’ mother had a bad feeling in September. She found that Lou was tired, that her complexion was pale. Bad news: his myelogram was not good.
Less than a year after the bone marrow transplant, it was not possible to do a second one. The doctors suggested that the parents repeat Car-T cell treatment. As Lou had reacted well the first time, Marion and Grégory validated this proposal. The family therefore returned to Paris for another stay at the Robert-Debré hospital. This time, the installation of a nasal tube was avoided. At the end of 2022, parents and twins were reunited in Clermont-Ferrand for Christmas.
But a bad control myelogram spoiled the party. “Doctors realized that Lou’s immune system was destroying the Car-T cells that were supposed to fight leukemia, without it returning. » The medical profession suggested administering, once again, the treatment, added to a multiplier medication. It was not without risk. “The doctors and professors from the Estaing and Robert-Debré hospitals got together and felt that this could be one treatment too many,” explains Marion. We refused and chose to do maintenance chemo with syrups and a few cycles of IVs, with one injection every 10 weeks. » From next March, the treatment will be reduced to an oral form, to be followed for a year.
For several months, the family has been able to distance themselves from the hospital, which is no longer part of their daily life. Lou and Éléna went back to school in Saugues in September. “Everything is going very well,” assures the mother of these two little rays of sunshine with an ultra-sociable tendency.
Celine Demars
1704248135
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