People told me I was inspirational

As you will know from last week I wasn’t able to have my chemo because my blood count was too low. Well after it was delayed to this week I was very anxious about going because I kept thinking to myself it’s going to be low again and then I will be two weeks behind my schedule.

However my blood test came back fine. It wasn’t as high as they would have liked it to have being but it was at an acceptable point for me to have my treatment. It all went well, and having this new line has definitely made a huge difference and it a lot easier. The one thing I did not enjoy that day was having the last of my stitches out of my chest. Anita did so well to get them out, I don’t know how she managed it to be honest, they were tangled so much around my line. It didn’t half hurt though and I did cry and almost scream at one point.

This week has been my low week, where I am not really meant to go to crowded places like the cinema or the pub because my immune system gets low and I could catch things really easily so when the sun came out I made the most of it and went for walks round Lichfield and Tamworth. It was nice to get some fresh air and clear my head. Having cancer doesn’t half take over your life and mess with your mind.

On Thursday I took part in a fashion show in aid of The Teenage Cancer Trust. The evening was organised by the ladies from Pink, the hair specialist in Birmingham. It was to make people aware young people and teenagers with cancer, and also that you can still look good even if you are ill. The night was held at Pier 39 in Mere Green with a lovely three-course meal. When it came to the fashion show part I was so nervous. I had to walk down the stairs in front of over a hundred people, stop for them to have a look and then walk in between the tables. If it wasn’t for the people clapping and cheering me on I would have panicked and chickened out. The night went so well and I had a great time. To top it all off was all the different people I didn’t know coming up and telling me how brave and inspirational I was.

A 'pizza' of the action as I have my first PET Scan

THIS week wasn’t as hectic as the week before thankfully. We had a lovely meal in Après for my Mum’s birthday. In the end I picked the pepperoni pizza to eat. I have really got into pepperoni pizza since starting my treatment. They do say your taste buds change when you have chemotherapy and they weren’t wrong.

On Thursday I went for my first PET Scan. This is to find out if the treatment is working. I had to be injected with a radioactive liquid and lie down in a room for an hour. This is where Mum set the buzzers off because she was catching too much radiation from me. It was a very funny moment. Every time she came near me the number on the bleeper would get higher. I went in the scanner for half an hour, with my head strapped into a cage so I wouldn’t move, it was very scary.

On Friday I was meant to have my chemotherapy. I had geared myself up to have it and in the end I couldn’t. My blood count was far too low for them to give it me. Fingers crossed it will be ok for this Friday. I shall let you know.

I thought I would take this time to say a huge thank you to my two oncology nurses at Little Aston Hospital. They have been amazing since I began my treatment back in February.

On the day of my emergency operation Diana had begun her shift early in the morning and did not leave until I went home at nearly midnight that evening. Her shift finished at four that day and came into my operation with me and was there when I woke up in recovery. That’s dedication for you.

Anita is my other nurse and she has spent hours and hours with me trying to get my old line to work. The patience she must have is untrue and I don’t know how she didn’t scream every time it didn’t work because I was ready to. I will never forget her face the first time she used my new line and actually got blood from it for my blood test. She couldn’t stop jumping up and down with excitement.

They are both lovely people and do not get enough credit for all the hard work they put in, so thank you for everything for that you do. You are both brilliant.

Meeting presenter was a dream come true

AS you will all remember from last week I had to have an emergency operation for a new Hickman Line. Well it was a success. The new line finally works and I was able to have my chemo. To be honest I was dreading going for my treatment because deep down I thought knowing my luck it wouldn’t work again and the operation would have been pointless.

The rest of my week has been hectic. On Saturday after my operation I went to my boyfriends 21^st birthday party. I managed to get my best dress and dancing shoes on and have a good time despite being dosed up on the anaesthetic from the operation and painkillers to help my chest.

A few days after my chemo I fell ill. This hit me hard because I haven’t yet been ill from my treatment and suddenly I was. I had a mouth infection and had white blisters all over my tongue and mouth, so I was unable to talk, eat or drink without it been very painful. It was horrible. I was feeling rubbish from the infection and wasn’t eating or drinking and because of that I felt even worse and sick. It got that bad I almost passed out in Tesco when I was shopping with my Mum. I am a lot better now but not looking forward to my next treatment in case it happens again.

On Good Friday my dreams were made true when I met and had coffee with my idol Anna Richardson. Anna is the presenter for Supersize vs Superskinny on Channel Four. I was originally interviewing her for my dissertation at University but when everything with the cancer happened that all changed, but she still wanted to meet up with me. I was on cloud nine for the rest of that day after having had the best time ever.

For Easter I went away for a few days with my family to the Peak District. It was a lovely break and a chance to not think about the cancer, and I had good time apart from all the rainy weather. I hope you all got some yummy Easter Eggs. I got a nice handbag and the new Twilight DVD. I am not a big fan of chocolate.

It’s my Mum’s 48^th birthday at the end of this week so we are off for a lovely meal to Après in Lichfield. I am undecided on what to have to eat. I can’t choose between a pizza or the fajitas, I like them both. I’ll let you know next week what I picked.

A big thank you

I would like to start by thanking you all for reading my column last week and hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting.

This week I was going to tell you all about my needle phobia and all the tests I have gone through to get where I am today, but I had a bit of a drama last Friday that I thought I would share with you instead.

Nothing is ever simple when it comes to me, especially with my treatment. For those of you who don’t know me, I have the biggest phobia of needles ever and to overcome this fear I had a Hickman Line inserted into my chest so they wouldn’t need to keep using them. The line goes into my chest, along a vein and into my central vein above my heart. However this didn’t end up making things easier and as the weeks have gone on the line has been playing up, and stressing me out and making my treatment a nightmare and then on Friday I had the worse day so far.

I had just begun my chemotherapy when I was in that much pain I was crying and could have started to scream it was that bad, so to be on the safe side I was sent for a line-o-gram to check the line was working okay. I knew deep down something was wrong as it took ages for them to get the results back from X-Ray and I was right. My line had spilt inside my chest and so the toxic drugs had leaked out into my body tissue. Well you can imagine the picture on my face, I couldn’t stop crying, and then the news got worse. I was told I would need an emergency operation that night to have the old line removed, my body flushed and cleaned from all the toxic drugs and a new Hickman Line put into the other side of my chest.

This was the worse possible news I could hear, ever! I had gone through all the pain of the last operation and my body finally getting used to my line to have to have a new one put in. I now have five holes in total across my chest. The operation was successful and I have spent this week recovering and trying to get over the pain of the new line. Something I didn’t want to have to do all over again, it wasn’t meant to end up this way.

I was too young to be a one-in-three statistic

IMAGINE being told you are that one in three statistic who has cancer. Now imagine being told you are that one in three statistic who has cancer at the age of 21. I am Laura Jayne Brown, I live in Lichfield and in January 2010 I was told I had cancer.

Up until Christmas last year I was in my final year at Staffordshire University studying Broadcast Journalism. My goal and future ambition is to become a TV or Radio presenter and I have always wanted to achieve this dream ever since I was little.

I was your normal average girl working hard towards my degree and looking forward to my graduation in July, blissfully unaware what was happening inside my body. It wasn’t until December last year when I found a lump in my neck and knew there was something wrong, but like many other young people I really didn’t assume the worse. In my case I thought it was down to stress and too much hard work at university, how very wrong I was.

It was after a trip to the Doctor, who then referred me to a surgeon when my world came crashing down. Following an operation to remove the lump from my neck I was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Almost three hundred thousand people are diagnosed with cancer each year with nearly two thousand being teenagers and young people. In other words out of every one hundred thousand people in the UK, slightly more than two people will get Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Hodgkin Lymphoma is cancer of the lymphatic system and affects your immune system. In simple terms, it stops your body from fighting infections properly. Cancer cells are made instead of normal cells, so instead of making normal cells to fight infections, the body makes cancerous ones. You cannot catch Hodgkin Lymphoma from someone and you cannot pass it so someone else. There is also nothing to say that anything you have done or not done has caused you to develop the illness. It is not your fault and of course this is the first thing that came into my head when I was told, what did I do wrong?

Over the next few months as I battle with cancer I will share with you all the new and different experiences that I have had to endure on my road to recovery.