It was 26th of October 2006; my mother’s birthday.

"I will I remember this day for the rest of my life"

I had gotten home from getting all my tests done and mum said “Jess, you have to go straight to the GP”.

So we did, but he wasn’t sure of what my blood results were so we had to go to the Base Hospital in Mackay. We went home and packed me a bag for overnight. Mum drove to the Base and we went in. The paediatric doctor that was on had to put a cannula in my arm so that they could give me fluids because I was dehydrated.

The doctor tried about 10 times to find a vein but it felt like 100,000 times. Anyways, the doctor finally got it in. I had some tests done and then the bad bits came.

They had told us that we would have to fly down to Brisbane to get further tests done because my red blood cells were too low and my white cells were too high. So we thought that we were going to fly down in a few days but no, I had to fly down the next day. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my friends and my family. Mum and I flew down and this was the first time that I had seen huge city buildings before. 

We arrived at the hospital and had to go to Emergency to see our first doctor. She was a good doctor. She explained what I was there for but I still wasn’t sure. They were either considering that I had a slack Bone Marrow or I had Leukaemia.  

I had to have some more blood tests and then they said that it was a huge possibility that I had leukaemia. They had to see what strain I had so I had a bone marrow aspirate and lumbar puncture.

This was when I diagnosed with cancer. I was unsure of what to do and say when the doctors had told me that I had AML (acute myeloid leukaemia). I didn’t have any words to say. I was speechless. I felt sick to my stomach.

"I told them that I understood but it didn’t sink in for a couple of days"

The doctor told mum and I all the stuff that I would go through. 

I breezed through all of the chemotherapy part. I had lost all of my hair which wasn’t really bad because I didn’t have to brush my hair or wash my hair as regularly.

My family had come down to stay at the Lodge but we had to get a bigger place so we went to the Leukaemia Foundation. It was really good there, we weren’t close to the hospital we were close to walk ways and it felt like we weren’t stuck at the hospital 24/7 which was fantastic.

I had 5 lots of chemo and the one that I remember the most was the “blue loo” because it looked like blue toilet cleaner. I had to have my twelfth birthday there with my twin sister Jeynara. I thought that the doctors would let me out for the day but I had a reaction to something so I had to stay in for antibiotics.

The Wonder Factory Crew came up to my bed and sang happy birthday. They wore sombreros which made them look really funny. We had 2 cakes and shared it with the people in the ward and gave everyone a party bag with yum stuff in it. I remember this one girl, Jemma. She was around 6. I think she was very beautiful and she had a brain tumour. We would always give her little gifts, especially fairies because she loved them. Sadly, she passed away, but I will keep her in my memories forever. 

There was another person that was a really good friend, her name was Emily. She had the same cancer as me but was a couple of months in front of me. We would always be in the same bed as each other. We would sleep in until lunch time and go to sleep really late. It was the good times. Pretty much on the second chemo I was in remission but I still had to have the other lots.

"I was very lucky but some people weren't"

It made me sick and tired and I lost all my hair.

The next hard part was that I had to have a bone marrow transplant. This was around Easter so I got soooooo many Easter eggs and I wasn’t letting anyone have them! My whole family had to have a test to see if anyone was compatible to give me bone marrow. My mum and dad weren’t compatible and we all thought that Jeynara my twin would be the match. My brother Kingston and sister Olivia would say “Oh Jeynara you’re going to be the one,” but no, it was Olivia and Kingston who were the compatible ones.

We were shocked but it was because Jeynara and I aren’t identical. The next step was to choose who would be the donor. Mum and I chose Kingston to be it because he would heal fast. I think it was about 1 month prior that Kingston fractured his hip while playing touch. We joked that if he didn’t want to do it he could have just told us! We had to call Livie to come down and be my donor. 

"On the day I was getting admitted I had to get a whole lot of tests"

The worst bit was that I had to get a nasal gastric tube – it goes up your nose, down your throat and into your stomach. It’s to feed you when you aren’t able to eat. I really wanted to pull the thing out but I wasn’t going to be bad so I just dealt with it.

I had swabs taken to see if I had any bugs, but I didn’t think that I would. I had a central line put in for all the chemo and stuff. They had burst it like 3 times I think. I had these huge sticks and bandages to keep it intact but then I had to go into surgery to get another one put in so that really sucked. I got put into isolation and then I had to wait until the chemo had finished and then I had my bone marrow transplant. I think that it was the easiest bit because it was pretty much a blood transfusion.

Livie had to get aspirates in her hips so that they could get the marrow, but they had to go a bit deeper because she had thicker hip bones. She wasn’t able to walk for a couple of days so she came into my room and we would call each other and talk even though we were like in the next room. It was funny. I was on the morphine which was awesome but it was for my ulcers in my throat and in my mouth, which were caused from the leukaemia cells in my mouth and throat when the chemo was attacking it.

When I got out of the hospital I went to the Leukaemia Foundation which was our temporary home. It was the first time I had seen it which was really cool and I didn’t even know where mum was taking me because I had never been to Brisbane. They had made me a bed in the lounge room so that I didn’t have to go anywhere. I had brought all my Easter eggs home and put them in the fridge. It took me a long time to eat them because I wasn’t eating much.

"I had forgotten what food tasted like"

I had so much stuff that it filled the back of the car. I was still vomiting and stuff so yeah it was still pretty bad. I was going up for checkups nearly everyday because of all of my levels were going haywire. The thing that was the best was when I got to get my nasal gastric tube out - that was awesome. It felt so much better but really weird because there was nothing there anymore. I felt bare. I was still pretty much going up to the hospital 2-3 times a week, but it was better than everyday.

My next step was all the side effects. I had to be put on steroids because I had GVHD (graft verses host disease). As the name suggests, my cells were attacking Olivia’s cells. This is because my cells thought it was foreign.

I got it in my gut and liver. They had to check so I had an endoscopy and a liver biopsy and the tests came back positive so they put me on some steroids – prednisone and some immunosuppressants so that my cells wouldn’t attack Olivia’s cells as much.

They weaned me of the immunosuppressants slowly and also the steroids. I got a bone condition called Avascular Necrosis from the steroids, which made the cells in my bones slowly die away. It caused me to go in a wheelchair because it was really sore and I could barely stand. I got it in my hips, knees and ankles, but the left side was the most affected by it. They were going to put me on some treatment for it but mum and I didn’t really want me to go on it because it was a trial thing and there are side effects that weren’t very good.

Mum put me on some alternative medicine which helped really well with my pain and everything which was good. I do physiotherapy 2-3 times a week to help strengthen my muscles up. They are starting to regenerate so it is getting much easier to walk around. I have adrenal gland shut down which pretty much means that my adrenal glands aren’t producing hormones which meant that I have to be put on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) so I have to take tablets everyday to help.

There is a high possibility that I will never have children but that’s not really important at this stage of my life so we haven’t spoken about it much. I also have a heart condition called Long QT syndrome which is passed on by the genes and I had got it from my mother, so we had to be put on a beta-blocker. Sometimes it can cause arrhythmias, palpitations or you could die in your sleep but luckily I am on medication for it so hopefully none of those things will happen. 

"When I got all the side effects sorted I felt really happy"

I go to an awesome school now. In year 8 I got the English award and I don’t even know how I got it because I hardly went to school but it was cool. I still don’t go to school full time because I get really tired a lot but when I have the chance I go. My favourite subjects are Science and Cooking, and when I am older I want to be a vet or animal scientist. I am in the QLD committee for CanTeen which I really enjoy and I am a TeenLinker which pretty much means that I go visit people in hospital or do in-services. CanTeen is a huge part of my life. It gives me a chance to do stuff that I don’t do at home. It gives me peer support with people around my age and I can tell them all the stuff that I went through when I was diagnosed with my Leukaemia.

My support has been great with my family and CanTeen made it much easier. I don’t know what I would do if they weren’t here.

Thanks for reading :D