A call for help. Actress and director Géraldine Nakache sent a special message to the microphone of Europe 1 on Monday August 24. Her 39-year-old cousin Sarah suffers from tongue cancer. After undergoing a tracheotomy which forces her to feed by tube, she is unable to communicate. “Prisoner of her body”, she would like to come into contact with other people affected by this disease, explained moved Géraldine Nakache during the program of Jean-Marc Morandini Le grand direct de la santé. “What terrifies my sick cousin the most apart from her illness is not being able to communicate with her children”.
With this call, the actress hopes that her cousin will be able to share her feelings, her pains and her anxieties with people who are going through the same ordeal, to better overcome it. “Communicating with people who are going through this right now would be a way to continue to fight against the disease. It would be the little detail that would change the game,” continues the actress. This initiative could create a great chain of solidarity, she hopes. To respond to his call, an email address has been set up: sarah.europe1@gmail.com.
Tongue cancer affects 2,000 people a year in France, mostly men (90% of cases). This pathology, less publicized than throat cancer, was recently addressed after the singer Michel Delpech has revealed that he had it.
Characterized by the development of cancerous cells on the tongue (the mobile part that can be moved and/or the part at the level of the throat), the disease is often diagnosed late because the symptoms are not very painful and therefore difficult to recognize at first. (discomfort with chewing, difficulty in pronunciation).
Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and human papillomavirus (HPV) increase the risk of tongue cancer.
To cure this cancer, the most common treatment is to surgically remove the tumour.