Radiotherapy

The twelfth entry is la technique en apnée, and its last two words are used far more often in an office than in a treatment room. Here they mean exactly what they say: the patient takes a deep breath and holds it, so that the heart drops away from the beam. Everywhere else they have become an idiom that English cannot build from « apnoea », a word it keeps for the sleep clinic. Travailler en apnée is to work flat out without a pause. Vivre en apnée is to get through weeks of pressure without ever coming up for air. Tout le service était en apnée describes a whole department holding its breath until a result came in, and sortir de l’apnée is the moment the pressure lifts. The nearest English is « holding one’s breath » for the waiting and « heads down » for the work, two images where French needs one. What holds the figurative uses together is the literal one in this entry: the lungs are full, nothing is let out, and the whole thing lasts only as long as it has to.