I swear that mannequin just moved...

I finally got out of hospital after a week, following my infection. During this week I'd lost my hair, my skin had got worse and I felt awful. Finally I was beginning to realise just how crap I would feel on chemotherapy. I would wake up feeling so tired I couldn't get out of bed and my throat was so sore sometimes I wouldn't eat or drink for days at a time.

My first day at Sixth Form without hair would prove to be interesting, but the thought of everyone staring at me scared me to hell. I wasn't comfortable being bald and I really detested it. I had however took to wearing a hat all the time!

You wouldn't even guess I had cancer! 

October 2010

Walking into my Sixth Form Common Room and taking my hat off for the first time was probably one of the scariest things I've ever had to do and my sympathy is with anyone who ever has to do something similar. But luckily no one really said anything and anyone that did quickly shut up when I mentioned that I had cancer. Although my hair has now grown back a little it isn't proper hair in all honesty and I still worry about how I look a lot.

I slowly started to become used to being bald though, and realised it did have some advantages such as not having any hair to wash or worry about! It also gave made me a master of camouflage in clothing shops...

Just some mannequins...

November 2010

I had my second chemotherapy a few weeks later and slowly started to become more used to being in hospital. I realised that sitting in my bed watching tv wasn't doing me any good. I was stuck here and I might as well make the best of a bad situation, so I decided to get involved with what Cat, the youth coordinator, and the other patients were doing in the dayroom. The amount of mugs I painted was huge! It was really good to talk to other young people in the same situation and I made some great friends. Even though none of us wanted to be there we all tried to make the best out of a bad situation. I know now that nothing in life comes to anyone, you have to go out and get it. Don't wait for the opportunity, make the opportunity! 

I was booked to have scans of all my tumour sites in the weeks following my second chemotherapy session. Chemotherapy, as with any medical treatment, isn't always guaranteed to work. These scans would be telling me whether the chemotherapy had worked or not. I didn't want to think about what it would mean if it hadn't worked. All that I'd been through so far would've been for nothing. Terrified doesn't even describe how I felt.