2024-01-10 11:05:00
His destiny was clearly mapped out: loading and unloading cargo from the cargo boats moored at the port of Le Havre… In Vincent Valinducq’s family, we are dockworkers from father to son. But the young man, who holds a baccalaureate, has a childhood dream: to become a doctor. A dream that does not leave him while alongside his brother and his father, he empties the holds of coal, sugar… “My parents thought it was an impossible dream; ‘to be a doctor, you have to be the son of a doctor,’ they told me.” Defying the destiny assigned to him, Vincent decided, at the age of 23, to enroll in the medical faculty of Rouen. And he will successfully overcome the difficult transition between the first and second year. Studying during the week in Rouen, Vincent is happy to meet his family in Le Havre every weekend. And then, there is this episode announcing the storms to come. “My mom asked me what I wanted to eat, I told her: eggs are quick, that way I can get back to my studies quickly; and I found on my plate… some moussaka, ham…” Vincent doesn’t really worry: his mother is only 50 years old, “an age that is hardly compatible with a neurodegenerative disease”. And then things will get worse. “She might no longer put a capsule in the coffee machine, turn on the TV, she let the food burn in the oven… Then came difficulties walking, tremors…”
A neurologist will eventually ask the dreaded words regarding the disorder: neurodegenerative disease related to Alzheimer’s. With his brother and his father, Vincent Valinducq will do everything for 14 years to best support this seriously ill mother. He recounts these years in a poignant book: “I became the parent of my parents” (Stock editions). After his mother, it was his father, exhausted, who fell ill; both are now deceased.
Meeting with this well-known doctor from the small screen (following having been a columnist on Télématin, he joined the #Bonjour team on TF1), on the occasion of the charity evening organized in Nice by the France Tutelle association, on the theme protective family caregivers (read elsewhere).
Why this confession book?
Everyone does what they can with what they have, I myself learned while walking, but I told myself that my experience as a caregiver might benefit others.
I also wanted, with this book, to shine a light on caregivers, to make people understand what this very word meant, even though it took me years to understand it myself; I didn’t know I was one, everything I did seemed so natural to me.
What do you think of your mother these years later?
They were painful years, but also rich and full of love. We don’t think too much while we act: we are on “autopilot”. But looking back, when I take stock, yes I experienced periods of doubt, moments when I didn’t know… No matter how hard we try to do everything, it’s difficult to think regarding everything, to forget nothing. … I made mistakes, but that in itself is not serious.
What regarding your personal life?
I put it on hold for 14 years. It was complicated for me to flourish, to be light while I had difficult things to manage. I realize today that my father, my brother and I made a lot of sacrifices.
The caregiver’s problem is that he feels guilty all the time; he may be at 100%, 200%, but he says to himself: “It’s not okay, I should be at 300%!” He is on all fronts, but remains convinced that there are things he has forgotten or that he has not thought regarding… And he feels guilty.
When your mother’s illness broke out, did you know straight away that you would be supporting her in this way?
When my brother and I started helping our mother, we didn’t think regarding what was coming next, we didn’t ask ourselves any questions.
But, to be honest, if someone had told me on my first day, when I was 26: this is what’s going to happen to you, I probably would have said no. I wouldn’t have been able to sign this 14-year contract. But when you are a caregiver, you move forward day following day. One day passes, then another… We deal with the problems one following the other, as best we can.
How did you organize yourself?
Me remotely, I managed all the medical and administrative part, the appointments, I made sure that she ate well, slept, took all her medications… My brother managed the house, made sure that the fridge was always stocked … My father was on call 24 hours a day.
At night, when there was an accident or sheets to be changed, he had to do it. When you are a caregiver, you do everything: you are a nurse, a physiotherapist, a caregiver… And my father, as is the case with many caregivers, did not want to be helped himself. For him, helping his wife was loving her – there is only one letter that changes – and he thought that if he helped her a little less, it would be as if he were helping her. I loved it a little less, that he was leaving the ship… I fought hard to convince him to call on a caregiver.
How did you manage to convince him?
Our level of support kept increasing, and one day I said to my father: “If one day you too are sick, would you prefer, for your dignity, that it be me who washes you or rather someone whose job it is?” It was thanks to this argument that he agreed to call on a caregiver. I think it’s important to make it clear that it will do good for the “helped”; if we tell the caregiver: “this will do you good,” it doesn’t work. However, it is very important for the caregiver to think regarding their own health.
This daily life as a caregiver did not prevent you from finishing your medical studies, but also from doing popular work on television: did you need to complete this project?
It was not at all a project, a goal. I didn’t plan on doing TV. My childhood dream was to become a doctor. I ended up on TV, because one day I was offered a program for France 5, “The Blue Zones. The Secrets of Longevity” on centenarians around the world. They told me: you are going to meet them.
I had a sick young mother and I went there in the hope of finding something to treat her. That’s why I started television. Then came Telematin…
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