I am a psychologist and equic, as part of my professional activity I accompany different people, mainly children but also some adults who have disabilities and/or encounter emotional, behavioral difficulties ... I can work in the framework of "classic" maintenance when I have my psychologist's cap but I also share my working time with colleagues on 4 legs: ponies, mainly horses and my dog, almost my shadow.

One day at the end of summer 2019, I go to the local pharmacy to recover the only short treatment that I have taken for many years and that I think I am a contraceptive and a complementary treatment to regulate my hormones in provocative acne madness. There pharmacist explains to me then that she will no longer be able to deliver one of the drugs (the one for acne) without my sign for a discharge from my prescribing doctor. So I make an appointment with my doctor who prescribes a brain scanner to be sure that everything is fine but he and I take this recommendation lightly . I go in September in the medical imaging center to pass the scanner, the doctor has been asking me for how long I take this medication ... For more than 25 years ... She contains her reaction ... I am waiting in the waiting room then, suddenly realizes that maybe I would have to look at a little more near that is a meningioma . I am called, the doctor receives me, I see the photos of my skull with a beautiful light that I suppose to be unusual; She explains to me with simple words what a meningioma is, that I have to go back to see my doctor so that we make an appointment with a neurosurgeon because I have two meningiomas, the one that a profane like me cannot miss by looking at the image and a much smaller of which she speaks to me quickly and with enough lightness for me to finish it too.

I quickly Butted on the words surgeon and operation . In my used plans to orthopedic surgery, my next "operation" was to be the break of a prosthesis on my old lap. My last operation was then a ligamentoplasty of the left knee in 2010.

At the moment, the announcement of this new operation completely obscured the gravity of the situation because for me it represented a new stoppage which I was unable, at that time, to measure the impact on my life and my profession, knowing that being a self -employed worker, was necessarily going to ask the financial question.

Announcement of a diagnosis is never trivial , the doctor who made me the first announcement, remained simple, specifies in these remarks, neutral. I did not seek more attention because I was not there; Probably in shock. The announcement faced my story, personal and medical. I came alone because I had not considered that the scanner would have such a result. Once back in my car, I do not think I felt something other than an apprehension to have, in turn, to put myself in the posture of the one who announces. Inform family, friends ... how, when ... confront their reaction, repeat the announcement in a period when the unknown of the situation dominates. All this without instructions and with this idea that we must be strong, reassuring, so as not to add pain. Receiving a diagnosis and then having to announce it to relatives is an individual story; There is no good way to do. The difficulty is certainly even greater for those who must have announced it to their children because there is this imponderable protective instinct that will come into play: how to protect them from such an ad. As part of my professional activity, I have repeatedly consulted or I myself had to inform children of the loss of a loved one myself ... to announce with simple words, to recognize that we cannot answer all the questions, not to hold your emotions because it is often this last dimension that parents apprehend. Hide her emotions do not protect children; This can, on the contrary accentuate the concern because children are emotional sponges, they need that we put words and then be able to do the same without fear of injuring or accentuating the pain of the sick parent, the expression of emotions must be normalized to become saying and prevent children from locking up in their own feelings. Our image society is a society that tends to unconsciously condition us to hide, to appear; Expressing and exteriorizing our emotions is sometimes taken as a sign of weakness when it should be a sign of a force because, at that time, we detach ourselves from the gaze of the other, we accept ourselves as we are. Many testimonies on the Amavéa Facebook page share a guilt to have "cracked" but also a fed up to be strong, to continue to wear everyday where it is time, it is time for someone to take over. Because diagnosis is the start of a long journey. For me, asymptomatic, it was the very first chapter of a new story; For others, this is a first experience with the disease and/or it comes to make sense of unexplained symptoms and sometimes put under psychiatric illness (especially severe or burn out).

I waited a month before my first consultation with my neurosurgeon. I did not ask myself the question of choice; My attending physician called the neurosurgery service of the Cornebarrieux cedars clinic (clinical that one of his patients had just attended and to whom many Aveyron patients are addressed); I was unable to wonder if I should go to the private or public sector, to ask myself the question, who is the best neurosurgeon in the region. During this month of waiting, my doctor fearing that headaches be the beginnings of decompensation, I alternated periods of stress, on the lookout for the slightest pain; And periods of rationalization, as a psychologist aware of the effects of psyche on our body and its ability to make us sick. During this period, I also thought a lot about the arguments to give to my neurosurgeon to convince him not to take me immediately. I was not ready to stop working, I wanted to wait for the summer, a much easier period for me but above all, I was not ready to have an operation.

This first consultation (October 2019) reassured me a lot, because the symptom that I feared the most (headaches) was ultimately not relevant (also because it could explain to me what a feeling I will feel if the headache was caused by my meningioma). He also agreed to wait, the operation was, according to him, but in the absence of a symptom, I suppose that there was no concept of major concern. We therefore agreed from a second consultation in the spring of 2020 in view of an intervention in summer.

Personally, the only questions that I asked during this consultation turned around symptoms, because not feeling anything special I needed to be able to give meaning to all of this, meningioma remained for me something completely abstract. My doctor's response was very elusive because he said there were no typical symptoms. I did not need to explain to me how the intervention would take place from a technical point of view; He spontaneously told me about the risks of hemorrhage, embolization the day before the excision to limit these risks, from the blood pocket to my name, from a compulsory passage to intensive care, also because my meningioma was easy to access; But I did not ask any questions. Here again, the individual part does its work; Some need to know, with more or less detail. We each have our own needs, it is important to be able to ask all the questions that cross our heads without any shame; It is up to them to answer it, to adopt this posture of the professional not deemed, to be attentive and attentive. We are the victims. This is where for some, the question arises of a second opinion (or more), because it is essential, in view of the gravity of the situation of being confident. Neurosurgeons are excellent technicians, among the best, no doubt. This does not guarantee that they are "good" communicating capable of reassuring you on the relevance of the envisaged solution (surgery, radiosurgery, etc.).

Also, while waiting for my second consultation, I entered the self -observation phase . Almost every day, I noted my feelings, my sensations. The two main indicators that I had set myself being fatigue and mood disorder (symptoms identified in 2 people from my knowledge before they decompress since not associated with a brain tumor). My professional activity which requires major adaptability, and my knowledge in neuroscience has also helped me a lot. I decided that I had a hyper-neuro-plasticity, that my brain was able to evolve, to continue its activity despite the presence of intruders. The brain is a great machine, whose enormous potential is still little known. Regularly working on stimulation/ rehabilitation projects of potential amputees or altered or whose development has been disrupted (neuro-development disorder, engine handicap after an accident, etc.), I know that this fabulous organ is capable of improving or regaining certain functions by regular training. The question of emotions is also essential because optimism is more promising than pessimism and areas of our brain dedicated to positive and negative emotions will also develop according to the place that we are going to give to each of them (brain study Matthieu Ricard). However , it is important not to confuse this work that we must do on our emotions with the increasingly present injunctions of positive pseudo-psychology. Optimism is working and requires accepting that we are sometimes overwhelmed by our negative emotions; Positive psychology is, for me, not an obligation to feel happiness but an acceptance of our negative emotions that we must manage to identify in order to be able to face them, and little by little leave them less room.

I am a psychologist for children and adolescents, and equic; That is to say that I work in partnership with ponies and horses to support weakened people and/or with handicaps. For several years now, I have therefore been working daily with children and adults with neuro-development disorder (autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder, dys disorders, etc.), people with different types of congenital disability or acquired after an accident, a disease ... During my psychology studies, my training above all consisted in integrating psychoanalytic theories but a course has above all awakened my attention: neuroscience; As well as a book, the man who took his wife for a hat (Editions du Seuil, 1988) of the English neurologist Oliver Sacks. This book and these courses marked me because I discovered the incredible world of the brain, an exciting organ in its functioning, its potentials, its role in our perceptions, our individuality.

My professional activity led me to deepen the process of neuroplasticity ; The idea that ultimately, nothing is completely frozen even when the development of the brain is finished, that it is capable of adaptation.

This brain plasticity has become for me a lifeline when in September 2019, a radiologist explained to me that I had two meningiomas in the head, including a voluminous which would certainly require surgery and that I had to make an appointment with a neurosurgeon.

The announcement of such a diagnosis generally generates a state of shock, the word "tsunami" regularly returns to the testimonies of the victims. Our reactions will then vary according to our personal and medical history, our temperament, but also, according to the way in which this diagnosis is announced. Because this first interlocutor that is the radiologist, once the announcement was made, as long as it has been abrupt, lets us go with many unanswered questions, questions that do not fall under its competence. While the shock is not yet exceeded, we must register in a new and difficult step which is to announce it to our loved ones. This implies finding the resources to think about how to state, with in the background, especially for those who have children, sometimes want to minimize the risks so as not to transmit your state of shock. Some collapse, others hold out, at least externally. In these moments, we would like to be strong, we imagine that we are wanted strong, sometimes also the personal situation requires that we be.

Do not manage to be strong in these moments, take the risk that our suffering invade the other, the people who are dear to us, can be particularly guilty and strengthen the suffering of the diagnosis. The reaction of the entourage is important and is probably also linked to family, friendly history. As important events are often the revealer of operation and sometimes of dysfunction in the relationship with the other. They reveal the solidity of a relationship, solidarity within the family and/or friendly group but also disappointment in the face of what we could imagine of the quality of these relationships.

The announcement of the diagnosis is the beginning of the chapter of a new novel, the issues are therefore important. The reception of relatives can influence the entire surveillance and/or care route that will then start.

Being a close relative of a victim person can also cause great discomfort: how to support when you have not experienced such a traumatic announcement, how to avoid awkwardness, what to say, how to do, how to manage your own pain, your concerns, to make them have a negative impact, how to protect, etc? Answering all the questions that assault those around you are complex because there is no satisfactory user manual, there is not one but several answers that will correspond or not to history, to the temperament of the person who wants to help. Each action or speech of the entourage also goes, throughout this route, to confront the capacity of the victim or the patient to welcome the attempts to help and support the loved one. Human beings is a being of language; Even today, we tend to underestimate the intellectual capacities of a non-verbal person. Culturally, we have been asked since our childhood to quickly access language. Faced with an ordeal, we are trained to encourage our patients to put into words the evils. The reflex, when you have to console and accompany a person in pain, is therefore to want to find the words that will lighten or relieve. It can be difficult to find the words; Despite their importance, let's not forget that acts too can lighten and relieve the sentence. They range from the benevolent presence to the help of managing daily tasks, sometimes harmless.

Christophe André in his book Consolations, those we receive and those that we give (p.125, ed. The iconoclast, 2022) identifies three pillars with consolation:

• "The presence (" I'm here, with you, I stay there, I will not leave you as long as you need me ... ")
• Affective support ("I love you, you count for me, and I want to lighten your pain ...")
• And material support ("I'm going to simplify your life, my best ...") "

Each of us has probably been confronted in this ordeal or in others, with clumsy consolations. Depending on our emotional state, they can be difficult to welcome, but they must be distinguished from the false consolations of those who especially want to put themselves forward and absent, from these people present when everything is fine and who move away when things spoil. The clumsy will hang on, question themselves and remain present despite our reactions.

The first consultation with the neurosurgeon can be relieved insofar as it will make it possible to find answers to the questions that we ask, but for some, it will create doubts, will accentuate fears. When there was no decompensation and therefore emergency hospitalization, it occurs several weeks after the diagnosis by the radiologist. For my part, I waited a month. A month to ask me a thousand and one question, to (too) listen to my body, on the lookout for a symptom, even if it means creating me. My job was a real recourse because it allowed me to take care of my mind, to focus on something other than this big light that appeared on the scanner, to rely on my knowledge and my experience to rationalize and take a little distance when the anxiety arrived. During this period, doubt can be constant; We go through different emotional states, we are on edge. Fear, anger can come back in a loop and express themselves without necessarily having a link with the element of everyday life that will trigger the manifestation of emotion. Some will need to be accompanied (by a psychologist, a psychiatrist), for others it will be too early.

This first consultation allows you to meet your extreme surgeon ; But it is also possible that this meeting does not really take place because any great technician they are, they are not trained to accompany their patients on the psychological level. And then there is also the question of treatment: surgery, radiotherapy, radiosurgery, ... some need to take a second opinion; To give yourself time, to reassure yourself, to give yourself the possibility of avoiding the most invasive treatment, to meet the doctor who will inspire confidence, will take the time.

For me things happened in several stages. The first consultation (October 2019) mainly concerned the largest of my meningiomas (left frontal) associated with a peri-lesional cyst itself associated with peri-lesional edema. My brain was suffering but in the absence of a symptom and at my request, we agreed with a second consultation (March 2020) then a 3rd (September 2020) which will lead to the following month. This year was not an anxious year of waiting because it was I who made the choice. It allowed me to mentally prepare for this intervention. I joined a circle of benevolent women for meditation sessions, made a kind of inventory of my personal and social life, I learned to focus on the essentials, to take care of myself. This great moment of introspection was relieving for me, reinforced me enough to be able to calmly face hospitalization, excision, post-operative consequences. Maybe my serenity has confused, whatever. Because in these times, all reactions and manners of managing belong to the person who is undergoing; The judgment has no place, the benevolent attention is invaluable and sometimes we may need to go and get it elsewhere. I understand that it can be complicated to accept for loved ones, that they can feel useless; But the presence of a loved one will always remain a source of relief even if there are no words or permanent actions.

I now have the time for surveillance, post-operative surveillance and also that of small left parietal meningioma. Endless history.

During this treatment period, some of us will need to hang on to concrete data, to things that can sometimes seem insignificant for those around us that especially awaits that we survive. The aesthetic consequences (scars, hair loss, etc.) often come in the foreground; Some of us will need to be informed about each technical point of the intervention, will need benchmarks on the physical state in which they will be. Many questions it is not always easy to answer, arise.

When I asked him how long my convalescence would last, my neurosurgeon explained to me that the quality and speed of the recovery was a function of the person ; As he understood that I was someone active, he feared the consequences that a forced rest could have on my morale and therefore on my recovery ... When he told me that I can renew 2 weeks after my leaving hospital, I was able to breathe again because, for me, it meant that I was going to be less dependent than during my previous operations (ankles and knees).

This example shows how our experiences influence our perception of a situation. For me, the reassuring fact was to be able to project myself on driving after two weeks; A time so short that it allowed me to focus on a concrete and positive objective rather than risks. Finding a reassuring fact is not easy and requires a certain mental availability that it can be complicated to have when we are in shock. Consultation, explanations of the neurosurgeon can help to go beyond this state of shock; It may be at this time that a demand for psychological help can be started by the patient but also by those around her, because loved ones also suffer.

The AMAVEA association, which I did not know at the time, can also play a role in particular because it puts us in touch, it makes the link between us, our testimonies can be sources of relief.

Often I had to explain to children that I accompany in the context of equic sessions, why I had to put an uncomfortable helmet on their heads when they wanted to ride a horse: because what is inside directs our body, our emotions, our intelligences, our potentials and that it is, still irreplaceable today. Because that's what it is about, our brain contains everything we are ; When it is altered, we lose a little or up to a lot of ourselves . From the diagnosis, we are taken in a whirlwind which sometimes can prevent us from becoming aware of what is really playing out.

When the technical management of meningioma has passed, the story does not stop however because the problem is not completely resolved. The awakening to new life can be just as complex as the passage of the tsunami, because this new life can be heavy to carry and heavy of misunderstanding in those who think that everything is finally finished.

The complexity of the AD already comes from the multitude of situations:

• Either there is only one and small tumor that does not require treatment, the victim must learn to live with and with the uncertainty that he grows and makes her go into the treatment situation;
• either there is non -surgical treatment of one or more tumors;
• Either there is surgical treatment of one or more tumors with complete or partial excision;
• There are also recurrence situations;
• And those that confront us with several of these situations.

Anyway, afterwards, there is probably surveillance for life; There is also physical consequences for some, and psychological probably for all. Because the diagnosis of meningioma (s) has absolutely nothing trivial. In the after some are depressing, develop a state of post-traumatic stress.

Physical and psychological consequences may not be visible; 80% of the handicaps are not visible: memory disorders, fatigue, mood disorders ... requiring that we explain, justify themselves ... Some must defend themselves to obtain recognition of their state and be able to benefit from an ALD, disability ... There is also the question of collective recourse which forces to find the medical files, to rethink or even revive this route. All these events can help make it difficult after. Treatment is not the end of history.

My head has become the part of my body which can potentially trigger the most lively emotional reactions: when children play ball next to me, I would like to remove it from the hands for fear that it is shining on my head. Even if this apprehension to take a blow on the head is less important two years later, it remains present because I feel and will permanently feel the fractures of my skull.

The conditions for the occurrence of our meningiomas add special circumstances. I have never recognized myself in the term of patient because I did not suffer from organic or functional disorders before my excision and I do not have definitive physical sequelae (I suffered from fatigue and a attention deficit several months after the operation). On the other hand I am a victim ; victim of having trusted.

Being a professional in health, I lived very badly the vaccination obligation which intervened too early in my care path; My apprehension (and the delay that I took in the start -up of my vaccination scheme) was then taken for an anti -vax positioning while I would have needed time to assess the situation. I would have flanked a giffle to the nurse who explained me in a rather haughty way, that the messenger RNA was studied for 30 years, instead I cried. Sometimes our emotional reactions can generate misunderstanding among those who do not know our journey; Sometimes, even those who know, forget and judge. These events can add pain to our victim journey.

By frequenting the association's Facebook page, I realized that the terminology used is important but also problematic . The very definition of what a meningioma can be experienced as an assault; "Benign brain tumor". Benin is defined as "without serious consequence" ... When I speak of my craniotomy or my meningiomas, I say that I was operated on or that I live with a non -cancerous brain tumor. There is no question of saying that the tumor will kill us but there is also no question of minimizing the risks. To say that these tumors are benign is not reassuring, consoling. The reality of the facts is important because it allows a recognition of risks and the potential psychological consequences.

Some of us also felt the need to give them a name: "inhabitant" "intruder" ...; The largest of my meningiomas has become a "mandarin", the smallest, a "redcurrant". On the other hand, I am not sure that I would have accepted only one person that I give them these names. These are my meningiomas, my story. There are also war themes: do we have a fight to lead? Are we warriors? Do we have to be strong, optimistic? Finally, there is no need to answer because there is no need to feel obliged to.

We need to cry, to be angry but we also need moments of happiness. A balance is to be found in this new life, it can take time. We are weakened victims at different levels; We need to be surrounded in a benevolent and not judging way.