It is a stubborn sciatica that turns the slightest movement into an ordeal, even when it is not a question of taking a few steps. It is a kidney, that of a twin sister, that we are impatiently awaiting to put an end to these three trying weekly dialyses. It is this reconstructed breast that we would like to see in the morning in the bathroom mirror, but that we still do not see. It is this weakened heart that transforms the small exit to the market into existential stress because of these few meters of steep sidewalks. It is Kujtim, Colette, Nassira and Charles who put pain, fatigue, depression, incomprehension, or benevolence, sometimes relief when luck smiles on them, behind a cold word like an Excel table : deprogramming. Kujtim, Colette, Nassira and Charles: four examples among the thousands of patients whose lives have been punctuated for months and months, sometimes years, by a disease other than Covid, and who have been told for a year now that their emergency to them must wait.
Touching, their stories tell us about this hidden face of a pandemic which imposes its infernal rhythm on the health system. They take us into this intimate gray area of our relationship to disease, not the little unimportant ailment, but the one that modifies lives, bodies, changes our relationship with others and with oneself, transforms a fighter into a defeatist, a discreet altruistic introvert obsessed with his own suffering. For the general public, the nose stuck on the evolution of the virus and this is quite normal, these deprogramming remain invisible. Of course, doctors have been warning for months about the time bomb behind it. The virus defeated, we know that this health bill will be heavy. In the background, these accounts of the deprogrammed also say the importance of having an efficient health and social protection system, which, once the emergency is over, will have to be put back on its feet.
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