“I decided to combine my passion for the sea with Crohn’s disease, this thing that I have been carrying around like a ball and chain for years”

The first time I knew I wanted to make the sea my career, I was 18 years old. We are now in 2013 and I want to join the French Navy. I am bilingual; my father, who died in 2022, is English. I have a solid knowledge of navigation, the army seems ready to welcome me with open arms.

After a second selection interview, I was asked if I had any medical constraints. For more than three years, I have suffered from Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease. The idea of ​​hiding it crosses my mind, but I refuse to start this professional project with a lie. My application was not accepted. The evil in my stomach has become an obstacle to my plans. Despite everything, I decide that my life will find its balance between sailing and the ocean.

I was born on June 7, 1996 in Malestroit in Morbihan, then I grew up in Saint-Gatien-des-Bois, in Calvados, never far from the sea. It takes time to appreciate the world of sailing. Because it’s hard and often the conditions are harsh. When it’s cold, when it rains, when it takes two hours of preparation to sail, you need desire. In a world where we want everything, immediately, sailing is a sport that cannot be practiced without a pronounced taste for effort. And it rarely comes out of nowhere.

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I was 7 years old and my brother 5 when my father, an experienced sailor, bought an Aquila, an 8.3 meter monohull. As a family, we discover navigation, we cross the Channel, we go from port to port, we fish. We escape, these are great memories. I joined the sailing club of Trouville-sur-Mer, then that of Dives-sur-Mer, in Calvados. Until I was 16, I sailed every Saturday with friends. If a session is canceled due to lack of wind, I am devastated. Another week of waiting for the next class seems like an eternity.

Even though I skipped fourth grade, academically I am an average student. I have trouble getting involved in topics that don’t really interest me. I spend a lot of time drawing boats and looking out the window.

“Huge abdominal pain”

The disease manifests itself insidiously. I’m 15 years old, it’s 2011, I’m in high school. I have stomach aches, a kind of gastroenteritis, I don’t tell anyone about it. I tell myself that this will pass. Then I have less appetite, I lose weight and I am more and more tired. One morning, the pain is worse, I go to the bathroom, the toilet is red with blood. I finally tell my parents about it.

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