Author's biography

Cécile Meslin loves Brittany, her work, and people. At 21, she became a state-certified nurse and worked for seven years in mental health before setting up her own private practice. She travelled for miles in her little candy pink Fiat, juggling between her patients, a husband she loves, and her children's homework. Time passes. She always has a smile and always this inexhaustible dynamism. Sometimes her back hurts her, but isn't it her mission to heal others? So she continues, until her body says "Stop! No More!" Operated in emergency because of a compression of her spinal cord, she narrowly escaped permanent paralysis. The cauda equina syndrome is the strange name of her disease whose poetic intonations conceal years of suffering. Writing allows Cécile to reconnect with her lifelong struggle: to ensure that differences are accepted.

The cover design was drawn b yThomas Croteau, 13.