“To the little girl you were,” a mother’s book gives strength to fight against pediatric cancer

Her well-oiled life came to a halt in 2009 when she learned of her 13-year-old daughter Margo’s aggressive brain tumor. Her life took a new turn. Faced with her teenager’s mental strength and desire to fight and overcome cancer, Patricia Blanc moved mountains. When she died, she founded Imagine for Margoan association aimed at helping research. Today, 14 years later, and 20 million donated to defeat pediatric cancers, she testifies in a book about this unexpected journey and the strength transmitted by Margo. Doctissimo asked her three questions.

Fourteen years after Margo’s departure, you are publishing your story today. Is this a new stage in your fight?

Patricia Blanc: Yes, years after founding Imagine for Margo, I wanted to write about our family’s story and our resilience. But it took me time. I wrote the book because our second daughter asked us to (she was only 10 when her sister got sick) to better accept it. And if it’s important for her, it could also be important for other families. But it took me a wonderful meeting with Emma (Emmanuelle Schaedelé-Giroire, co-author Editor’s note) to get my words out as a mother and as president of Imagine for Margo. There are things we want to forget, and those we don’t want to forget. It was a necessary step that I hope will help other families.

What message do you want to convey through this moving testimony?

Patricia Blanc: It tells the different stages of our life with Margo, and since. First of all, this carefree and pleasant family life that we had (in finance, in South Africa and in New York) struck in 5 days by the unthinkable, the announcement of our child’s incurable illness, and these months of fighting that begin for all of us. The difficulty at the time of finding ourselves alone facing the difficult announcements and the shortages in hospitals. The search for treatments everywhere in France and internationally, and what we felt.

But above all, the book bears Margo’s legacy, or how this little girl, at the age of 14, organized a fundraiser during her illness in 2009 and raised 100,000 euros. How she decided to help her doctor, to work on her type of tumor, to do her research… With this message that we found in her notebooks: “Go ahead, fight, and win.”. This is the message she has left us since then, to continue her fight, this little flame which proves that nothing is impossible, neither talking to politicians, nor moving the labs… She left us an incredible strength.

This book is published on the occasion of Golden September. An important date for this cause?

Patricia Blanc: We chose this date, during Golden September – International Childhood Cancer Month – because more than ever we need to talk about these cancers, which remain the leading cause of death from childhood illness.

I wrote it personally, but also as president of Imagine for margo to raise awareness and to raise awareness of the importance of mobilizing. How can we react? How can we be resilient, and do things that initially seem impossible? How can our children give us the strength to unite many people? Or how to boost research? This book shares all of this, positive emotions, in line with “fight and win”. This book is also full of hope. Despite a life turned upside down by illness, there can also be beauty and positivity.