Because of cancer, Côme, Matilda, Keyssa and Matteo no longer go to school but to Château Sourire, a Provençal country house in the hills above Marseille where they shoot arrows, run and jump, forgetting the catheters under their t-shirts.
In the gymnasium of this fully renovated building in a green setting, Léa Pénichon, their adapted physical activity (APA) teacher, wants to get them "moving as much as possible".
Because these children, who spend "a lot of time in the hospital," need "to strengthen themselves," especially their lower limbs. It's also about physically compensating for "all the games in the schoolyard" they're missing, she explains.
Since September, Château Sourire, owned by the Ricard family and leased under a 50-year emphyteutic lease to the association "Sourire à la vie", has been equipped to accommodate 25 children overnight and up to 100 during the day for completely free stays, by the day or by the week.
A unique place in France, complementing the hospital for children with this type of pathology.
The association, co-founded by a pediatric oncology nurse and a sailor, has integrated sport into the care pathway for 20 years.
"We realized the benefit of starting physical activity as soon as the diagnosis is made, in the hospital room or in the gym, and then throughout the entire process," explains Professor Hervé Chambost, head of the pediatric hematology, immunology and oncology department at the La Timone hospital in Marseille, "particularly to reduce toxicities that will cause long-term after-effects."
– “Not all alone” –
After barely an hour of running around the garden and then letting off steam in the gym, Côme and Matteo consider themselves "buddies", and Matilda, 9 years old, with round cheeks and brown bobbed hair, takes Keyssa, 8 years old, in her arms.
"Here I see other children who have my disease and it makes me feel good because it lets me know that I am not alone in this treatment," explains Matilda, who has been treated for leukemia for six months.
Like Keyssa, with a pretty pink scarf tied on her head, matching her glasses, who admits to being bored at home and did not want to talk about her illness to the few friends with whom she has kept in touch by phone.
These times of "small community" are also precious for the parents, who can take a breather. Diego Revinski, Matilda's father, watches her play in the huge wooded park: "it gives us hope and it gives us joy."
With tears in his eyes, he recounts the announcement of the diagnosis in August at La Timone hospital, where he had taken his daughter urgently following a "bad blood test result". Then began "a nightmare".
From the moment Matilda was hospitalized, the association, which occupies a small gym on the pediatric floors, came to offer them sessions in the hospital room, even in the "protected sector", a special unit dedicated to children whose immunity is too weak to receive visitors.
– “To live their childhood” –
The Château is experienced by parents as "an extension of the hospital," where care is continued by a medical team. The fact of "taking the children out of the hospital," noted Sylvie Gentet, the nurse who founded the association, induces a "change in behavior": "they are less apprehensive about medical care."
The stays here "allow them to live their childhood, to experience things they could not experience if these stays were not accompanied by a doctor or a nurse."
Some teenagers participate in very ambitious projects, such as putting on stand-up comedy shows. Currently, eight children are preparing for a bivouac expedition in Norway, with intensive training. These human adventures will give them "a goal, other than beating the disease, which will help with reassurance and self-confidence."
"Sourire à la vie" has branches in hospitals in Nice, Montpellier, Besançon, Dijon, and Nantes. The association, funded by patrons, also received €685,000 from the Zevent online charity challenge.
Each year in France, approximately 2,300 children and adolescents are newly diagnosed with cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
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