Published on March 7, 2023 on the Instagram page “The starry man” of Xavier, nurse in a palliative care unit in Metz, here is a video full of humanity on palliative care made from drawings as part of the campaign “Let’s dare to live”.
While the noose of euthanasia seems to be tightening more each day in France in general indifference, some choose in their own way to reveal the beauty of a medicine that accompanies until the end the sick whose days are numbered. This is the case of Xavier, a palliative care nurse in Metz for more than ten years, alias “The starry man” on social networks. Passionate about his profession, this Belgian shows his daily life on his Instagram account, through his drawings, as full of humor and tenderness as they are strikingly accurate. On March 7, 2023, it was a very special publication that the nurse shared, followed by more than 170,000 people, since it was an advertising spot in partnership with the French Society for Support and Palliative Care (Sfap) as part of the “Osons vivre” campaign. The goal: to show the beauty of the mission of palliative care through a true story told and experienced by Xavier, who created the text and drawings.
We discover the genesis of this nurse’s vocation for palliative care, a unit that is nevertheless difficult and particularly trying on all levels, including for the doctors and caregivers who work there. A veritable golden fringe in the dark cloud of this heavy news, the advertising offered by “L’homme étoiles” offers a real moment of poetry and sweetness.
An exceptional vocation
The video, broadcast on TF1, Arte, TV5 or even France 5, is in fact a tribute to a patient accompanied by Xavier whose medical case had revealed to him the existence of palliative care. “The story goes back to the summer of 2008. I work as an interim nursing assistant in a hematology department in Brussels,” explains Xavier in his post. “One morning, the doctors announce to this patient the end of his treatments. And behind this announcement, I understand that it is the life of this gentleman we are talking about. Xavier spends a long time alongside this man of whom he still knows nothing and of whom he will know almost everything two hours later. His wife and daughter, his bookstore, his dreams and his projects: it’s all there. Xavier becomes the attentive ear, the hand that we shake. The receptacle of heart-to-heart confidence. “At the end of our exchange, he paid me a compliment, very simple, but which I have never forgotten. He said to me: “I have never been so well taken care of”. » The beginning of an extraordinary vocation.
