A normal life

Today myself and Christopher booked our trips to Cape Town! He's coming for two weeks and I am going for the full month. I'll even get to enjoy a sunny Christmas which will be very strange but I cannot wait to enjoy the perks of a summer Xmas.


I've had a great week. Sport has featured heavily, as I've decided that cancer is not an excuse to get unfit/ out of shape. So I've been playing a bit of tennis and have tried yoga and pilates. Yoga is so relaxing that mum fell asleep at the end which was absolutely hilarious for me. And pilates was such hard work that my stomach ached for several days!

My lovely course mates came to visit last week for the day so we went out for a nice pub lunch and then they came to my house and met Dizzy. As usual she was a little rascal (she is getting bigger by the day.. if she keeps growing at this rate she will be a giant!).

Everyone at uni has been getting their results. Obviously this is quite difficult for me as I'd love for everything to have gone smoothly as I would be graduating soon. But I might as well make the most of the extra year I have for revision. No excuse not to smash it out the park! I get the result for my dissertation tomorrow (I think..) Nerve-wracking stuff.

Tomorrow the beautiful Jo G and Jenny J are coming to stay for a couple of days before Chemo Club on Wednesday. Unfortunately the weather forecast isn't great so I'll have to think up some fun things to do which don't involve being outside... not easy when you live in Bucks!

I'm currently reading a book called Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson - a really good read. It is basically the film 50 first dates but in book form and with some fairly major differences. For anyone that hasnt seen the film.. it is about a woman who loses her memory of the past 30ish years every time she goes to sleep. She's married so it's all a bit awkward as every morning she wakes up in bed with a man who she assumes to be a one night stand (but is actually her husband of 20+ years). Anyway I would definitely recommend it if you need an easy but gripping book to read.

This one's for you, Jo

One of the best things about having lots of free time is it gives me time to make fun plans for post chemo days. So this post is designed to excite me, and to make you all jealous. My aunt Jo has been begging for a new post so this one revolves around my trip to see her and the family in December!

If all goes roughly to plan (with no more delays) chemo will be finished in early September. My exams aren't until May which gives me a few months of fun before I have to start revision. We've got a family holiday booked for October to New York which I am trying not to get too excited about incase treatment gets delayed and I can't go. So I'll swiftly move over that onto my next plan.... South Africa!

I've got some lovely family who live out in Cape Town, who have kindly invited me and Christopher over for a long holiday in late November/early December. So I have been putting together a list of fun things to do out there, which are actually pretty much endless.

1) Climb the lions head. No, not a real lions head. It's a mountain that from some angles looks like a lions head (I think?). 

2) Take a trip up table mountain. 

3) Vineyard wine tasting in Steinburg. My brother did this last time he went and apparently the vineyard is beautiful and you can cycle to it on a tour type thing which has some lovely views.

4) Visit Robin island. This is the island which Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on. If we're lucky we will be taken around the island by ex-prisoners which would be very interesting indeed.

5) Go shopping at the Waterfront. This goes without saying. Must also try seafood as it is especially tasty!

6) Go to Cape point, the southmost point in Cape Town.

7) Many trips to Clifton beach. This beach is within walking distance of my cousins house and has been the destination of many sundowners. 

8) Quad biking, cycling, tennis.

9) Roundhouse breakfast. The roundhouse is a restaurant in an idyllic location. Not to be missed!

10) Last but definitely not least... go to HQ for a delicious steak. (yes Jake, you can come)

I'm sure my organised aunt would love to put these plans into a precise, colour coded, cross-referenced 2 week plan for me.... knock yourself out Jo!!! ;)

Shoes and sunshine

Life post dissertation is great! I had chemo on Wednesday, relaxed on Thursday and then Christopher aka Jesse came round on Friday. We had an m&s 'dine in for 2' meal which was fabulous. Sirloin steak, potato wedges, apple crumble and a bottle of wine for £10... although a significant amount of the bottle of wine ended up being drank by Christopher's laptop (clumsy boy!). On Saturday we went to High Wycombe's Eden shopping centre and I did a bit of retail therapy.

I am actually the worst shopper in the world as I am painfully indecisive and get bored of it within about an hour. However when it comes to shoes I need to be reigned in. These beautiful shoes were my latest buy after convincing myself they are a staple wardrobe item and they'll get lots of wear. I'm a sucker for comfort when it comes to clothes but the same rule does not apply to what goes on my feet.

On Saturday evening my dad cooked one of my favourite meals which consists of pork and prunes and a really nice sauce. Sounds like an odd combination I know, but trust me it works! However my bloody appetite was nowhere to be seen and I barely touched it which was rather annoying.

English summer has been teased out from behind the clouds a couple of times and on Monday my lovely housemates from uni came down to visit me for a few days. So we enjoyed the sun out in the garden on Monday and enjoyed one of dads ridiculously good barbecues. On Tuesday we went into London and went to the tate modern (turns out we aren't that interested in art..) and then went to the kings road and popped in to see Christopher at work.





This morning we went to a lovely little cafe in Amersham called seasons which does very tasty food. I had eggs benedict =D
My friends have left now but they will return soon I hope for another mini holiday in leafy Bucks.

Dissertation? What dissertation?

Today marks a very special day for me. Finally, after months of hard work and some months of not so hard work I've finally submitted both hard and electronic copies of my dissertation. I mentioned my course in one of my early posts but I am going to write a little more about it, and my aims and aspirations.

The title of my dissertation was 'How do DNA repair mistakes induce cancer?'. I was able to choose which area of this topic my dissertation would specialise in so I chose to write about the BRCA proteins. They are basically proteins which are essential in repairing mistakes in DNA replication. Some women (and men) have faulty genes which code for these proteins, and this puts them at a higher risk of acquiring breast and ovarian cancer. If you've heard of them it's probably because they've been highlighted in the media recently, with Angelina Jolie having had a double mastectomy (breast removal) due to having faulty BRCA genes. It's a mutation which can be inherited from ones mother and/or father so is often identified when theres a higher than normal rate of breast or ovarian cancer in ones family. Preventative methods include mastectomy and ovary removal.

During the first few months of writing my dissertation my mum was actually being treated for breast cancer. Not due to the BRCA proteins luckily for me! I was a bit worried that writing about breast cancer might upset me or in some way my mums illness might make writing it harder but I ended up finding it really interesting. I also wrote an essay in my first year at uni in which I was allowed to choose the title, and I chose 'anticancer drugs'. I learnt so much whilst reading around the different drugs: the way in which they work to fight cancer, why they cause the side effects that they do etc. I found it all so interesting which confirmed for me that it was a possible career path.

Last year I shopped around online to see what postgraduate courses there were available to me in the oncology field. I wanted to be based in or around London so that I could live at home or at Jesse's and commute to save some money. The first one I found really caught my eye as the course content all sounded very interesting and the structure of the course and location were perfect. It was a one year masters in Cancer Therapeutics with Queen Mary University of London in association with Barts Cancer Institute. I applied to a few others to spread my chance of getting an offer but really had my heart set on this particular course. There were only 20 places on the course and after a month or two I was adamant that they didn't want me, but luckily (I deserved some luck!) I was given a conditional place!!

I deferred the course until 2014/2015 so I could have a 'gap yah', do a bit of travelling and save up a bit of money. Unfortunately my gap year has ended up very different to my plan as I'll be finishing my treatment and then working towards the my deferred final year exams. I'll be able to squeeze a bit of travelling in in the summer though so all is not lost!

I'm doing a clinical trials research methods course in November as long as all my treatment goes to plan, and am hoping to do some work experience in Cancer Research UK's clinical trials office at some point once I'm better. So that's the aim.. I am so over organised and love having a good plan. It's something to look forward to!!

The Big 2-1

Last Tuesday was chemo number 3, which means I am now 1/4 of the way through my treatment (that was very satisfying to type!). The treatment went pretty swiftly with no delays so it was only about 4 and a half hours which was good. I always write off the first 2 or 3 days after chemo because I know I'll be exhausted and this chemo was no different. In my estimations I decided that on Wednesday Thursday and Friday I would be under the weather (and need lots of naps) but by Saturday I'd be back on form ready to enjoy life until the next treatment. 

Sunday was my 21st birthday so we had planned to have friends round for a BBQ and a drink or 10 on Saturday night to celebrate. My beautiful girls, being the stars they are, made a huge effort to be there despite many being in the middle of their exam seasons at University. However someone up above was frowning on me last week because they decided to give me some kind of virus on the Thursday evening which left me feeling very unwell and nervous that I'd end up celebrating my 21st from a hospital bed. We had to cancel my birthday plans on the Saturday which was upsetting for me as I had really been looking forward to them, but my boyfriend gave me the first part of my birthday present which cheered me up...

I'd been moaning a while back about the fact that there is lots of video footage of my younger brother when he was little but none of me and my older brother. I knew we had it all on video (or those little weird cassette things we had in the good old days) but didn't know by what means we could view this. So, for my 21st birthday, my Mum and Dad got all of the cassettes transferred to dvds and my lovely Jesse trawled through 20 hours of video footage to pick out some highlights of me over the past 21 years. He also got some close friends and family to do video tributes which he put together into one lovely show for me to watch. Needless to say, I sobbed or wept or something. Whatever it was, it can't have been attractive, and very much reminded me of my 1 year old self! The video was AMAZING.

So that was the Saturday evening and it certainly cheered me up and by Sunday morning I was feeling much better - although still very tired and slightly weak from the weight I suspect I had lost over the previous few days. It's amazing how presents can make you feel better though! I definitely got spoilt rotten and was treated to a delicious lunch at a very posh restaurant by my wonderful father. So although my 21st may not have been what I was expecting, considering all the circumstances... I would say it was outstanding!

Dog Blog

A recurring theme in this blog will be my puppy so apologies for anyone who actually only wants to read about the trials and tribulations of having cancer. It has turned in to a bit of a dog blog but she takes up a large amount of my time! I have made some progress on my dissertation (some being the key word) but still a few days away from completion I suspect.

I recently decided that if I'm going to have a shaved head I might as well make the most of the english sunshine and get a bit of a tan on my face. However my general obsession with suncream combined with the doctors orders to wear factor 50 (I've been wearing factor 30 hehe) has meant that the golden glow I'm after is yet to appear.

I'm not sure what the blogging etiquette is regarding showing off about page views but I have been very pleasantly surprised by the number of people reading my blog and the lovely feedback I've had. And yesterday I hit 30,000! So thank you for reading everyone!! I wrote this blog because when googling 'hodgkins lymphoma blog' or 'cancer blog' I often felt quite down after reading them (although many were fantastically written). As I consider myself to be quite an optimistic person I thought it'd be good to write down my spin on cancer, whilst also using the blog as a bit of an outlet. It has also allowed me to let my friends and family know how I'm feeling and what I'm up to. 

Below is a pic of me in my wig and Dizzy!

My Glass

Today I feel like my glass is not only half full, it's overflowing! I don't know if its the sun brightening up my mood but if so I'd like it to stick about. I've been doing my dissertation today and playing with Dizzy. One might think that the playing with Dizzy would have meant an end to the attempted work but somehow I have been quite productive and my mood has not suffered as a result. I think part of what's cheered me up is the knowledge that if I was completely healthy I would currently be sat in the library with an empty glass.

Me and my friends Abby and Harriet are off to a lovely pub sat on a mill this afternoon for a few drinks and dinner which should be lovely, especially with this weather! The only thing getting me down is that Jesse has lots of work on at the moment so he's in London until my next chemo. But after that it's my 21st birthday and rather than doing exams I will be having a lovely weekend with my family and Jesse so that's definitely something to look forward to!