Medication

Something that I've never really talked about is the different medication that I have needed/still need. Obviously there's the treatment (which for me was both radio and chemotherapy) but there's a lot more as you may need medication to help with the side effects of treatment, I'll talk about a few different medications that I have had,

• Anti-sickness(ondansetron & metaclopramide) - this helped with the sickness I felt from treatment, sometimes I just felt so sick but these tablets usually helped with that.
• Bowel control-(docusate, bisacodol&suppositories) -chemotherapy can affect your bowels and these help with that problem(I'd rather not go in to a lot of detail about that haha) 
• Painkillers- I'm not really on painkillers regularly but we have some there if I do need them, I take painkillers for when I'm aching in my wheelchair or if I feel a bit ill or have a headache, ones I've had before/still have are paracetamol, oxynorm, diclofenac and after surgery I did have codeine but ive not had that really, I take painkillers for when I'm aching in my wheelchair or if I feel a bit ill or have a headache
• Septrin (prophylactic antibiotic) I have this two days a week to help fight infections, although this week I am unwell so it mustn't have worked that well!
• Gabapentin(this is for nerve pain but I no longer take this)
• Norethisterone(I used to take this when I was still having chemo to stop my periods but now I have finished chemo I am off them-which I hate(gosh boys have it so easy lol) 

One year on...

today (15th march)  is one year since I was diagnosed and march 21st will be one year since surgery, to be honest this past year has been horrible (excluding some things) but looking back from where I was this time last year helps me to see how far I've come since last year, for example, when I came out of surgery I couldn't even sit up and now because I've been working so hard with physio I can do a lot more than that, obviously I still want to reach my main goals of walking and using my left arm again and that's something I'm trying to achieve now and working towards, but seeing how far I've come since last year shows me that I'm making so much progress and helps me feel a bit more positive about my physio, because this is a very slow process but looking back shows me that I will eventually get there it just takes time and a lot of hard work, my life was very constant before all of this, I went to college everyday and saw my friends everyday and then suddenly it all changed;I never anticipated my life to turn around the way it did but from the beginning I've been determined not to let it get me down,I think that's the most important thing to do in situations like this, it will only get you down if you let it  so you have to fight against that and keep positive however hard it may be. 

18th birthday

On  24th February 2017, I turned 18, I spent my 18th very differently to how I expected and I'm unable to do so many things that I would've wanted to do, however  I'm going to try to not get upset over this, I have to look on the positive side because being negative won't help me, through this journey I have found out who my real friends are and made some great new friends through the Teenage Cancer Trust so I spent my birthday with fab people who I know will always be there for me, although my birthday was different to how I had imagined it, I still had a great day and being with these people  reminded me that through this hard time I'm still surrounded by happiness,  my Mum is amazing, she never  fails to make me happy and she put so much effort into making my birthday special as she knew how hard this day was for me, everything was perfect and I had so much fun despite being unable to dance etc, hopefully this shows anyone in a position similar to mine that whatever you're going through and can/can't do, nothing is impossible and you can always find a way around things