“I always wanted to continue playing sports even when I was undergoing chemotherapy. It helped me a lot to hold on and I am convinced that it helped my recovery.” Stéphanie Gervais suffers from metastatic Her2 breast cancer. Particularly aggressive and currently incurable, this pathology is very painful for the women who suffer from it. “I suffer from metastases in my neck and back. It’s particularly painful and sometimes it makes you not want to get off your couch. When you’ve been sick all night, it’s hard to motivate yourself to get dressed, wash, go out.”
To regain the desire to live, Stéphanie chose to join the Sinoo association, of which she took over the presidency. Every week, the structure based in Saint-Malo invites its members to go walking under the watchful eye of a trained supervisor. “When they are ill, many women have to leave their professional environment. They don’t see many people anymore. Our association is there to recreate links and show them that doing sport is good for them,” explains Stéphanie Gervais. On the occasion of Pink October, his association is organizing this Sunday two walks and runs in Saint-Malo, the day after Colombiabig march organized this Saturday in Rennes.
According to an ANSES study carried out in 2016, regular physical activity reduces the risk of breast cancer by 10 to 27%. Practical during treatment, adapted sport would reduce the risk of death by 40%. But you still need to be able to practice in good conditions. Sometimes forced to have a breast removed, women then suffer the inconvenience of an imbalance both physically and aesthetically. To meet their expectations, the Rennes sports underwear brand Maratona has developed a prosthesis specific to women who have undergone a mastectomy. “There already exist prostheses but rather made of foam or silicone which are not very suitable for sport and sometimes very expensive,” explains Simon Besnard, co-founder of Maratona. The brand has already won over several members of the Sinoo association, who have adopted the brand’s bras, particularly renowned for better absorbing the implantable chambers that some patients hide under their skin to receive their therapeutic treatments.
It was his wife Sophie Kempner, who worked in textiles for a long time, who designed this “boob move” adapted to the movements of a body bruised by illness. “Her mother died of breast cancer so we had to deal with it. She wanted to find a way to help.” With the help of several patients, she developed a breast prosthesis made of small beads capable of reproducing the movement of a breast during running, for example. “Without a prosthesis, it’s as if you were running with two different shoes,” assures Simon Besnard.
A “simple and not too expensive” product
Little extra praised by Maratona: the small beads inside the textile gently massage the body and prevent inflammation of the scars. “We have developed a simple and not too expensive product that is not afraid of perspiration or water. Women can use it to go swimming without fear of damaging a prosthesis which would have cost them more than a hundred euros,” assures Simon Besnard. “Girls don’t talk too much about these issues because it touches on the intimate. Often, they keep it for themselves. It’s important to highlight them so that we know that they exist,” assures Stéphanie Gervais. Sold for 25 euros, the “move boob” is offered on the Maratona brand website and in several Decathlon stores in Brittany, where the products are manufactured.