The Problem With Exponential Growth

The problem with cancer is the tumours and these problems like tears in the lungs don't tend to go away. They tend to get worse. I cannot believe quite how sick I have got in such a short space in time.   I have officially had to move out of Boulcott and am definitely regressing back towards baby state.

I have this awful cough which makes me feel like my lungs want to be on the outside of my body rather than on the inside where they are supposed to be. I also can't eat very much anymore which also depletes the amount of energy I generally have to. The painkillers make my mind a little more foggy.  So yeah, I spend most of my days in bed!! I have found this magical thing called Lonely (The lonely hearts bra range) and they do these amazing bras that don't have underwire so I can sleep in the m and they are comfortable!! So I am far more happy about this than I should be!!! I don't have to get dressed every time I hop into bed. You know you are getting sick when this is an achievement. 

Then you have days like yesterday when I had a migraine and unlike a migraine taking one day to sort of fix itself up, I still am feeling it a little bit which such but it must go away because tonight I am going to One Republic concert with my friend Danielle. 

When I used to say rest I meant that I would not do much walking but now I mean rest, I have not left the couch or except to pee or shower. I am napping/in full on cat mode getting ready for tonight.

But I'm lucky there has been loads of good things that have been happening in my life, not just the fact that my friends from out of town have come back or my friend Gilly has the most gorgeous puppy Kelly!! Or the fact that my parents have agreed that I get to dog sit a dog during the day!!!

But my friend, who i guess isn't my friend anymore decided to ask me out!!! This is super and ultra exciting because I may have had a crush on him for quite a long time and he's one of my best mates so it's like do I say anything... Luckily I didn't coz he felt the same way!!! :) Oh right, his name is Mac and he went to Wellington College and then did a GAP year with Bex and everyone so he lives in wellington too! Soo that's all very exciting!! Secretly, I really like this one, he's pretty awesome! Though awkwardly we don't have any pictures together! I will have to get some!

My friend Katie also couldn't go to Taylor Swift so she gave me two tickets so guess who is getting a super exciting date weekend up to Auckland on the 29th... I know you do have my permission to feel sorry for him now but I promise I'm not mean to him all the time, just a lot of it! 

So my health isn't great, I don't know how much longer I have but I still have many thing which make me happy! ONE REPUBLIC TONIGHT! Aren't I lucky?

Anthony and I at Brokeback Mountain

Cuddles With Kelly 

The Great & The Miserable

Sorry it's been so long since I wrote on here. Life has been moving quickly! I have almost not stopped moving! I am one of those people who get bored very easily. I love to keep moving! I love to be doing things and I'm so lucky that in the last six weeks that is basically all I have been doing! It's been crazy and I have loved it!

In the last six weeks I have had my hall ball which was amazing! It was held at Te Papa and it was such a good night dancing with all my amazing Boulcott kids! I had the most amazing dress however I don't think dad really approved because when he saw it he asked me if Miley Cyrus picked it out...

I went down to Dunedin to visit all my friends, it was a pretty spectacular week filled with much lunching and brunching and little bit of partying! I even managed to fit in a wonderful trip to the butterfly exhibit and a quick cuddle with my uncles gorgeous dogs!

I went to Beyonce in Auckland which was amazing!! She is such a superstar! Tom who doesn't even like her music had to admit that it was amazing and one of the best concerts that he has ever seen. I may have over exaggerated it when I said "the best concert he has ever seen" but it was "good" and that's about as much as you will ever get him to admit. I think he secretly will now be singing Beyonce in the shower when he thinks we can't hear him! Dad was more loving of her. I was well... my normal diva.

I even went to Park Road Post Production and got to see the Hobbit being made into the wonderful film it is going to be!! I am sooo excited to see the whole thing but as per usual I can tell you nothing apart from Phillipa is truly one of the most amazing woman I have had the pleasure of meeting!

I have also had Boulcott's end of year events as we have to move out on the 16th of November!! :( Everyone is now moving into exams which is CRAZY! I'm obviously studying hard! I am lucky to have lived here though! I have meet some of the most amazing people and I'm so happy that they are in my life! It's such a cool place to live and I absolutely love it!

I have attempted to bake, watched dearest Simon play rugby, I have driven to Hawkes Bay and Levin to spend time with my grandparents, I have watched many movies, I have caught up with old friends, made new friends, I have been to plays, a wonderful musical where Anya beguiled the audience, I have had more brunches, lunches, coffees, dinners, afternoon tea (and any other word you can describe a catch up revolving around food) than I care to admit! Life has been amazing!

Now for the miserable side of this blog.

I have a little tear in my lung and it's bleeding. This is about as much fun as it sounds. I am on some very nice painkillers to get rid of the pain but there is not much they can really do apart from hope it fixes itself or maybe a small round of steroids.

It's making me really tired, it's soo annoying as I still want to do so much but I have to take it easy and not stress my body out too much which I am not very good at doing. So I have my fingers crossed that it will get better but I guess we always knew this was coming. There isn't much that I can do about it so I try to not worry about it. That's not always possible but I can try my best.

"The thing about pain is that it demands to be felt", my dear John Green I wish this wasn't the case but like most things he wrote about when he wrote 'The Fault In Our Stars' he is right. Pain sucks and as much as you try to ignore it, it is there. I'm simply lucky I have such wonderful distractions.

Not puppy level of distraction but good ones all the same.

Dunedin Beach Walks

 Dinners Galore

 Making Sophie into my Ghetto Flower

 Ball Night With Eddy & Simon

 Boulcott Bingo Night

 My amazing floor 

 The Wonderful Tessa

We 'B' sad to leave Boulcott 

Mood Swings

The sadness creeps up slowly, sometimes it seems to disappear entirely but there is always this smidge of sadness which I can't properly shake. I wish I could but the truth is I am sad, don't get me wrong I am happy too but I am sad. Augustus said it right when he said "the marks humans leave are too often scars."

Everywhere I seem to look now I seem to be leaving scars and I hate it. I don't want to cause people pain but I don't know how to stop it. 

 I have reached that point in hyper exhaustion where my mood swings are involuntary and often uncontrollable. I will get angry for a very small, almost non-existant reason and then feel like crying then have fits of uncontrollable laughter. 

It is messing with my head. I have never had this little control over my emotions and it scares me. On the plus side I haven't been able to stop eating the past couple of days which may mean that I truly do end up in the plus side of life. 

Life moves on and it continues to move forward and I have so much to look forward to. I simply wish I had more control, more time, more puppy, more everything really. 

Especially more puppy. 

That would be nice. 

Red Panda's too!!

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

This title is rather overdramatic which I sometime fear is a word should be applied to me. Overdramatic Harriet. Sometimes I am too. Earlier in the year I fell over and I was certain that I had broken my foot and told everyone so, I hadn't. I am still embarrassed to this day what a drama queen I was about it.
But most of the time I like to think I am not.

I have been having a ridiculous amount of fun. I turned 20!! I actually did it!! I'm 20! This is a huge milestone and I have spent the last two weeks celebrating it. My parents have dubbed it my birthday festival as I have been so spoiled and been having soo much fun with the most wondrous people!

I think I should defiantly turn 20 more often. I would recommend it to anyone. It has been the best birthday I have ever had! Jannie even flew in from Zurich to come and celebrate with me and so many wonderful people flew in from all over the country to spend the day with me. So much delicious food and wonderful people and copious amount of alcohol. What more could you want?

But like everything you can't have the highs without the lows. Two days ago I felt a sharp pain in the back side of my ribcage every time I breathed in. I told myself that I had just pulled a muscle with all my vigorous dancing but on Sunday night I decided that I couldn't really ignore it anymore and I sent an email with Anne.

She replied quickly on Monday morning telling me that it was important that I call her and arrange an appointment. I awoke to a call from Sophie asking what I was doing as she was on her way over and was I out of bed yet (I had to confess that her call had woken me, she just laughed and told me to get in the shower and playfully reminded me most people would be waking up when the clock still read AM).

Instead of having a showering like Sophie suggested I decided to read my emails to see if Anne had emailed. She had so I called her and she said that it was important that I come in and we check out what is going on. So, as per usual, when Sophie showed up I was still in my pj's and she had to run me through the motions of getting ready. I was being rather toddler like as even though the rational part of me knew I should go, I really didn't want to.

With the help of Sophie and Tessa they finally got me into Will's car. Will had very luckily decided to bring his dog Molly along for the ride which left me completely and utterly smitten as Molly and I cuddled all the way to the hospital. I cannot describe how gorgeous she is.

When I got to the hospital I started to get nervous again but as anyone knows in hospitals there is a lot of waiting around. I went and got an x-ray and managed to see Anne's registrar before they had only done one x-ray rather than two so I had to go and get another one done. Luckily, I had Sophie with me who is rather excellent company and continuously made me laugh.

However both scans showed nothing so then they became worried that I might have a blood clot in my lungs and they got very worried, words were being thrown around like clexane injections which are better known as rat poison. At this point I decided I should tell mum that I was in hospital.

After much grumbling and being a fraidy-cat (all on my part) a nurse was able to get a line in and I headed down get a CT scan. I even got a ride on a bed as they were so worried with mum and Soph chuckling all the way, making many a princess Harriet jokes.

Luckily, the CT scan showed that I have no clots so yay! No rat poison for me!!! One of my little tumors has decided to get a little infection around it and attach itself to my lung lining which is what is causing the pain. Rather annoying. So hopefully I will be able to take antibiotics for a week and it shall go away. I have an appointment with Anne next week, if it isn't better by then I will cross that bridge when I get there.

What's been more scary rather than the hospital visit is the pain. It makes everything so much more real. Like I do understand what is happening to me but most of the time I can ignore it and try to live my life and be as happy as I can be but when you feel pain every time you breathe, it's right there, staring you in the face. There is no way around this, I am dying.

There is not that much time left for me. I don't mean this in the sense that I am dying as we speak but I mean I don't have years, I have months. One thing that I do is every time I see people whom I love I try to tell them that I love you because I don't know how much more I will be able to tell them that.

If this week has shown me anything it's that I have so many people whom I love and who love me and I am going to try to tell them so much as possible.

Because I do

Always have, Always will.

 The Wonderful Jess flew from Dunedin for my birthday

The spectacular Sophie who looks after me!

Pizza dinner with a few friends on my birthday

 My surprise birthday dinner with wonderful friends

 Boulcott Gatsby Party

I may or may not have picked the theme so I could wear the dress again.... 

 I may have missed Tessa slightly

 Quick trip to hospital with Sophe

 But luckily this pup was around for cuddles! 

Sadly, this puppy is my granddads. 

I haven't got a puppy.

Yet. 

Making 20

I'm going to make it to 20, I actually am going to turn 20! Monday is so close now! I can almost smell it. At the beginning of the year I was told I only had six months to live, I wondered whether I would get to see Tom turn 18 I didn't even think I could make it to my own 20th!

It simply makes me smile to think that this is not the end of me, not yet. I have a bit more life in me, a few more memories to make yet. Who knows what I have left to do. Life will never be perfect so it's important to appreciate moments and milestones and this may be one of the happiest milestones I have ever reached.

I have already had some amazing birthday treats and it's not even my birthday yet. I just have the best friends a girl could ask for. 

Sometimes I love my life, because just in case you missed it, I'm still alive!!!!

The Results Show

I'm not sure how to write this really because yesterday I went to the hospital and I had both good news and bad. I guess I should start with the good news. 

Last time when I talked to Anne I thought she was talking about maybe needing radiation to be able to keep my voice. Luckily what she was saying involves a lot of if's (which I didn't realize) and I do not have those if's. The tumors are only in my lungs not anywhere else. 

Now the not so good news. My naughty little tumors aren't so little anymore. They have grown quite a bit since my last x-ray. The biggest one is 2 - 3 inches in diameter and there are more than 12 others one which are of a significant size.  They seem to be growing quicker as well but I will see more in 2 months when I have my next scans.

So on the plus side I don't have to have radiation which is what I was really worried about. I love being a student and having fun. Radiation would have made me so tired. It would have sucked. I wish the tumors were still littler because we are still only talking about months.

But who knows, according the first prognosis I was given six months to live and I am sitting on six months. I have lots to look forward to! It's my birthday in less than 20 days which is so exciting!! I never thought I would turn 20!! I am going to the Beyonce concert with Dad and Tom. I even have my hall ball.

Sometimes when I feel sad I just remember what I good life I have and it helps me. I honestly have had one of the best lives and I fully intend to keep enjoying it. 

Bring on being 20!!

Highs & Lows

Somebody once told me that the hardship that we experience in our life makes the us appreciate the good times even more. In most respects this is true but living through the lows still suck.

The last two weeks have been a roller coaster. Last week I went to Bali with my family! I had one of the best weeks of my life. I had the most awful cold when I went over there so there was lots of laying by the pool and eating scrumptious food while getting better. I even flew over business class. The whole trip was rather swellegant! It was a wonderful week away with three of my favorite people in the world!

Sadly to my high there must be a low. While I was away my Nana passed away. My Nana was a pretty spectacular person. During a youth she was a dancer and went around and entertained the troops during  the war. When she stopped dancing she decided to take up athletics and she competed all around the world. 

More importantly she was such a nice person. My Nana is not my biological Nana she is Pam's mum (Pam was my nanny for six years) Nana simply decided to adopt me as grandchild. For six years I would spend at least one afternoon a week with my wonderful Nana and Granddad. Nana was always trying to make you fat with delicious home cooked sweets and even when you simply couldn't have any more she would be wrapping up a little take away bag. She was one of the strongest people I have ever known. 

She was so determined and threw herself into everything with an absolute passion. I'm proud to be her granddaughter and I will miss her greatly. 

Tomorrow I will borrow a little of the strength that she instilled in me and face up to my tests with a smile. No matter what the outcome I can get through it. I can do it. 

Tomorrow I have to have a CT scan to see whether I will need radiation. One of the tumors may be too close to my vocal chords and I may need to have some palliative radiation to be able to keep my voice. 

My life is not an easy one but it is mine. I sometimes think I would love to trade lives with anyone but I wouldn't. I wish that I didn't have cancer but if I wasn't me then I wouldn't have all these amazing people in my life. My life may not be easy but it is one full of love and for that I am thankful.

Our Villa In Bali

 What I return home to!! 

 My wonderful Nana

RIP To my wonderful Nana & Granddad