Yay For Sickness!!

So I am neutropenic. In regular human speak this means I have no immune system and lucky me! I have picked up some sort of a bug, so its hospital time.

Onto more exciting this though, the weekend was amazing!! The girls and boys looked seriously attractive!! :) In the end we had 5 guys and two lovely ladies loping off their locks!!

My baby brother, the skux that he is....

I now have a skin head for a boyfriend. How joyous is that?

 Mr James Kane (sorry about the eyebrow...)

Don't they look pretty???

Thanks to Ben White for these photos. I have stolen them!! They are rather amazing my dear!! 

So after all the hair had departed heads we decided to head on inside for some good old food and everyone ate themselves silly!! So overall I would say that I had an amazing night and I really hope everyone else there did too. 

On saturday I went to my friend Willy's umu which was actually so lovely as I got to have a good catch up with lots of mates who I hadn't talked to in a while and had SUCH YUMMY FOOD. I am going to come out of this like ten tonnes heavier because all I do is eat, sleep and socialize which usually involves food.

Then on Sunday just to continue the trend of eating I went to lunch with one of my best mates Claudia. She is actually one of the most awesome people that you could ever know. It also happened to be her birthday. However my silly bleeding noses put a little damper on the mood. 

At some point in my life I must thank my baby brother. He drives me everywhere and just is a really general cool cat. He brought me chocolate on saturday. He got into some serious good book with that one!!

So I went home, driven by a la brother and tried to relax. Dad came home proud as a peacock because he had won the semi final of his golf tournament and was into the final. I then still wasn't feeling great so I got Dad to get the thermometer and BAM! Temperature. So off to ED he took me.

I had one of the creepiest experiences in the ED waiting room. I have a little card so I get whisked through and don't have to wait in waiting room with millions of sick people but I sat down to fill out a form and as I was writing away along comes the lady in the hat.

The lady in the hat has very bad eye makeup. Panda eyes to rival  even Caitlin's sister. She comes over to me and asks "Have you seen a car?" I am really unsure as to what to say so I just sort of sit there quietly hoping that she will go away. However she continues by saying "I am new to Wellington and I have lost my car, it;s silver" and recites some sort of number plate.

She then states loudly that its HERS. Nobody else's. She then proceeds to try to give me her cell phone number so in case I see it I can text her. I reply that I have cancer so I spend most of my time in hospital so am unlikely to see her car. She then tries to give it to me anyway and says she could visit me. 

Some things are worse than cancer and psychiatric problems are seriously one of the worst things that can happen to a person. Dad came to my rescue and took me away from the waiting room.

I then had to lie in a bed in a room which smelled faintly of pee for many hours. Father was great and stayed for the whole time and kept me company. Unlike mother he can actually sit still and is actually very patient, telling mother not to come was the wisest thing that I ever did. 

So that brings us to now. I am just chilling back in my favorite ward! I have a single room so no bed pooping room mate. I have to get a blood transfusion because my red blood cells are low and antibiotics and a few jabs into my belly but aside from that... not too much.

Nature And Things

Today is the day! Today is the day when my friends, brother and boyfriend decide to loose their luscious locks in support of me and raising money for cancer research. Man! How lucky am I? Like seriously, not only are they doing this we are having friends coming from all over Wellington to support them! I seriously cannot believe how lucky I got with my friends.

The thing is that they are my life now. I have no life really, its rather boring. It's just chemo, sickness then better for small amount of time then it starts all over and I have to do this for eight months. So I live very vicariously through my friends. 

At the moment because of exams there is very little scandal but soon it shall be SUMMER! not that it looks like it outside... oh well! Weather is just another thing we cannot plan.

Most people spend their whole lives making plans (I am a very good example of one!) but what happens when these plans don't work? 

I really like biology (nerd right!) and in nature when the environment of organism change it will either adapt or die out. It's interesting watching my family (yes, this is as creepy as it sounds) change and adapt to living with cancer.

My mother is a marvelous woman but she has never really been the sort of mum that would wait on her children hand and foot. She was always keen for me to try it myself and establish my independence. Yet, I have regressed back to a baby and need so much help all the time. It's not easy on her. 

She is used to constantly doing things and she is very bad at sitting still but she like rest of my family is slowly adapting, slowly getting used to this new life that I have made them have. 

Sometimes nature is cruel.

Fears of Life

I now have a brand new Hickman line. It was bit of a mission as they had to make two cuts to find a vein big enough and the cut where they found the vein is at the base of my neck just above my collarbone, so its a bit harder to hide than the one before but thats ok!

I was more concerned because I was nil by mouth for about 24hours before the surgery! I was sooo hungry!! All I could talk or think and just generally breathe was food! I have since caught up on the food I missed!

I am a bit nervous for tomorrow. I have not really been that nervous for any of the other rounds of chemo but I am for tomorrow. Tomorrow I am going to start the round of chemo which makes me incredibly sick. YAY!!

Hopefully it should be better than last time because they have my nausea medicine under control but it's still scary but lucky me I have pretty pills which will help me. What about everyone else?

What scares me more than the idea of being sick is the idea of being left behind. Nothing scares me more. I know it's crazy but this is my life. Until August next year I can pretty much give you a schedule of my life. It is basically a five week cycle.

I am living the five same weeks over and over and over and over and over again but you're not. My friends are facing other scary huge challenges, like leaving school and deciding what to do! and god forgive if you don't know!

There is so much pressure on people at my age to know what they want to do with the rest of their life! But who really knows at 18! Isn't the idea to change and then change some more? But while they are on this adventure of self discovery I shall be sitting in the same place.

And this is what scares me most. In their new lives how much time will they have for me? Its a selfish thought and its awful that I am not more supportive but hey I am nothing if not honest. That is my biggest fear. and birds! Whoever invented those cretinous creatures...

Rugby? OHHH YEEEAAAAHHH

Hospitals are odd places. They are actually like a world of their own. They seem to function on there own time, they never seem to sleep. There is always something happening. 

Today, is surgery day! I have to get ANOTHER hickman line put in! It all started last Friday...

I think Mum must have been feeling a bit bad for going away (she was leaving me and going to her university reunion for the weekend). I figured this out when she turns up with not only my favorite sushi but one of the rolls that I love from my favorite bakery and a cream donut!! However, I was most impressed and think she should go away more if I get food like that!! 

Anyway she ended up going away and having a marvelous weekend. It was odd though because as I was sitting there (nursing my belly after soo much good food) and i noticed that my shirt on one side was actually rather wet!! So I called in my nurse to have a look. She took one look and promptly informed me that my line was almost out!! 

This is rather odd!! The line was supposed to last me the entire time I was on chemo but go figure! I am an odd case!

So, I managed to get home on Saturday anyway must to my pleasure and I managed to watch the RUGBY!!! OHHHHH YEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!!! I really do feel like doing a dance just thinking about the game!!! 

The Welsh should have won!!! That is the only shame! The French were almost beaten by a fourteen man side who far out played them but I guess thats life!

I was supposed to start chemo today but the liver is a little grumpy with me. The liver is effected by methotrexate (one of the types of chemo I get) and it needs to be good for the next type of chemo so the next round has had to be delayed til my liver function comes to play!

This is lame but this is life! 

Insanity

I am officially an excessive over eater. I need to join over eaters anonymous. I managed to escape this place they call the hospital for all of three days and it was glorious!!

I love being at home, nothing was nicer than sitting outside (yes, it was sunny in Wellington!!) and chatting with friends. I managed to get a little bit of cooped chicken syndrome. I realized I had only been at home or  hospital for a WHOLE WEEK.

I HAD to get out. I was going insane. I was DFHAGFHDGOHAGHUUGFKG!! I am far too social for my own good. I have never spent this much time at home.... ever. I always have enjoyed being out and about and was known for disappearing for entire weekends at a time with my parents relying on intermittent texts for updates on my whereabouts. I really must have worried them!

I do worry my parents still. I think I always shall. There won't be a time ever that I won't. I mean I was a bit of a wild child last year, this year cancer... what next? I really am unsure as to how I am going to top this one. I managed to make my parents live out every parents nightmare!

Oh well! Another week of chemo starting today! This week hopefully I should be ok, just have some amazing chemo brain so beware of my blog. It may become even more riddled with insanity!!

What Happens When I Don't Get My Cheeseburger...

It's good to be feeling better in hospital. The only thing is they need to wake you up all the time to do lots of different checks but hey! This means you get a relatively lucid blog update.

The reason I am sure I am feeling better is right now if I was listing my emotions hungry would be right on top. Lucky I have some chips to satisfy this with.

I also know this because of one of the funniest things to happen in a while actually happened in hospital. I was lying here. In this bed. Which is a single room. JACKPOT!! No roommate to complain of this time!!!

All of a sudden I started to get this real hankering for... a Macca's cheeseburger. So I did the normal thing of texting the boyfriend who was coming in for a visit. He turned up all smiles. With no cheeseburger. I did not find this acceptable.

His excuse was he was on the bus. However, somehow, in my drug haze, I managed to get my jelly in his hair. I found it soo funny, I decided that was exactly where the rest of it. He really is a marvel to put up with me sometimes.

It may seem like such a childish thing to do AND it was but I am child. I am 18. A supposed adult but not really. I still need my mum to shower me on occasion. I need my family around me to feel safe. I am an adult with training wheels.

I am learning and trying to become one but I am not quite there.... yet.

Chemo Makes You Insane

Chemo Brain:

1. I don't know when things happen
1. I don't know what I say
1. I loose track of time
1. I just don't make a hell of a lot of sense most of the time.

Warm and Fuzzies

Hospital is great but feeling much better this time than I did for the last lot. I have managed to hold a conversation with many of the visitors. Which is amazing. This girl, Ashna who goes to my school has written this beautiful song http://soundcloud.com/ashna-basu/you-can-take-mine

It actually made me cry it is such a beautiful!!! I adore it soo much. I am such a music geek so this means it is so much beautiful!!! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, there is just nothing else I can say right now!!!

On other news Jossie Wells. Jossie Wells is the number one world free-skier and a genuinely lovely guy!! http://jossiwells.com/.  When I was down south, I skied with him and when I say skied with him, I stood in awe!! But hey! photographic evidence is needed I think.

Left to Right: Sarah, Jossie, Jess and I!

His email to me was actually amazing because it being winter, he has soo much on his mind. Its insane how many people care and it's so nice because this chemo is not fun.

Plan B

I am almost completely bald. The beautiful short hair cut. gone. The past two days I have had to wear my wig or a hat. They are great for feeling normal but its annoying. I want to take my wig off and for there to be hair there. I want this to have been a dream.

It's not a dream, it's life. My life. Tomorrow, I will be admitted into hospital for three weeks. When thats done I will have two weeks out. One of which I wont feel very well. I have one week every five weeks where I am me. I will only have fourteen days this year left which I will feel good.

That sucks because my poor friends will come and visit me and I will be sooo happy to see them but I will be sick. The thing that is so hard is that I cannot see the end. I am only just beginning but so are we all.

We are setting out into the world to figure out what we want to be and then finding our 'Plan B.' This is my 'Plan B' and it sucks but I need to smile or I will start to cry.

Last year this amazing woman called Mae Chen came to our school and talked about how life is nothing but 'Plan B.' The idea behind her talk was that life never works out how you want it to, it changes in crazy ways and you need to adapt and work with 'Plan B'.


My plan was to go to Otago Uni. I was going to apply to hostels and pray to get into one! I was going to do a Bachelor of Science and major in Phycology and Genetics and minor in Bioethics. This was the plan because the course sounds interesting and I am interested in it. 


I WAS NOT SURE.


Plan B hit me slam in the face. I have cancer. I have to fight it with every fibre in my being. 


I occasionally get angry because this was not something I chose. It was not something I wanted but it's happening and I cannot turn my back on it. I do not want to go into hospital for three weeks but I will. I will get through that and then I am going to reward myself. 


Last night I had lots of friends over to watch the warriors game. We lost but you know what. That did not matter one bit to me because I was surrounded by friends and people I love. They were happy. AND most importantly I got pizza. 


Plan B was not something that I ever chose but I am going to make the best of it because I only have one life and seriously, what is the point in being unhappy? Life comes quickly, it can go even faster, so why waste time being unhappy. 

My life is Plan B. Go figure.

Migraines Are Nasty With A Capital N

Sooo unimpressed with this migrane. It has ruined my weekend plans. I have been up chucking here, there and everywhere. Thank the gods that I have a legit stockpile of anti-nausea's because that means it will not ruin my sunday!

I had a really cool day on Friday though! It was my schools house music!! The Year 13 Dance was especially hilarious! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXZpyZHyflk

The video quality is not very good but it does give you a great indication about how awesome the girls in my year are. I actually adore them! The hilarious moments actually never cease!! :)

Even more importantly STIRLING WON!!! (Well first equal but shush!!) WE WON!!! We are the house that is known for loosing everything. I have always kinda loved it because we were always the underdogs and this year we won!! I must say the house leaders put sooo much effort into this day but as always it was amazing!

I cannot mention house music without mentioning the teachers video. The media teacher at my school is amazing. Every year she makes this hilarious staff video where she gets all the teachers dancing. Every year its a little bit different but this year she excelled herself.

I seriously have been so lucky to go to Queen Margaret's. It has been a really amazing place to go to school, I would seriously recommend it as a school because I have just enjoyed my time soo much there!

I know I talk about school a lot but hey! What can you expect? I am a teenager. School = Life!

Tomorrow I am going to be better. No choice. This migrane is going to be gone.

BAM and the migrane is gone... I hope.