Shouldn't I be feeling better now?

That was it then. Cancer treatment, done and finished. Or at least on paper. I still had scans to go, to see if I was dying or not. It would be three months before I could have these scans to tell me if I was a goner or not. I decided I'd try and make the best of the next three months just in case! After all, if I was dying I wouldn't want to be wasting time.

I spent as much time at Sarah's as possible and enjoyed the warm weather, you really can't beat the sun! I also passed my driving test meaning I could now drive (legally)! I got lost on a number of occasions purely because I could and spent so much time driving to places I've never been before. It was so nice to find places I'd never been before. I also invested in a camera, which I used to take photos of everything I did.

It was very windy here.
August 2011

I realised that everyone is only here the once. You only have one chance at life and I was going to grasp everything with both hands. I was often depressed about dying however, and worried about it so much still. It followed me around like a big black dog, always with me and never far from my mind. It meant I ended up seeing a lot of things with a bleak finality, almost as if nothing really mattered anymore and everything seemed to pale into insignificance.

My hair also started to come back slowly, it still hasn't properly grown back and probably won't ever, and although it gets me down a lot, it is a small thing to have lost.

Woo hair!

I was still horrendously tired a lot of the time though and was constantly asking myself shouldn't I feel better now? A lot of people assume that just because I'd finished treatment that I was fit and back to full health. I was nowhere near and found it hard adapting to 'normal' life as such. I'd worry about dying so much and I'd been constantly paranoid about any small pain and still do now. I had spent so much time in hospital and having seen friends pass away I also questioned the point in a lot of things. What was the point in me going back to Sixth Form if I was going to die? Surely if I was going to anyway I might as well make the most of what time I had and even if I wasn't I felt there was better things I could be doing rather than A levels. I spent a lot of time deciding whether I should bother going back to Sixth Form.

Teenage Cancer Trust had supported me through all of my treatment. They had provided all the fittings for the wards and did so much to help me. I decided that it was only fair I did my best to pay them back. Viking FM, a local radio station, run an annual Cash For Kids charity event and for 2011 they were raising money for a new Teenage Cancer Trust Unit to be opened at Castle Hill near Hull. I went on the radio and they recorded me for a series of adverts to help raise money and awareness about young people with cancer and about what Teenage Cancer Trust do. Overall we raised £30000 for TCT.
Along with this, I did a number of newspaper interviews to raise awareness for teenage cancer. I also did a speech at Hull College to a number of people who fundraise for Teenage Cancer Trust, about what the money they raise is used for. I attempted to do everything I could to help people who were in a similar situation as me.

By the middle of August I was enjoying being off but wondering what the future would hold for me. Where do I go from here? In many ways I felt lost now that I had finished my treatment. How was I meant to just go back to life as it had been before?