On my 11th birthday my mum told me that I could have the day off school but only if I had a blood test. I had to get a blood test because my auntie thought I looked a bit pale. So on the 7th of July, 2005 I got a blood test.

That night my mum got a phone call from my local GP saying that I had to go and see him the following day. When we met with him he said that he needed to talk to my mum alone so I waited outside. A couple of minutes later he asked me to come back in, and he explained to me what was wrong.

"At first I started to cry because I didn’t understand it all."                                                                                                              

He explained that it was cancer and that I had to go straight up to the hospital because they were waiting for me there. Mum rang my stepdad and asked him to come drive us up there because she was too upset to drive. When we got there, we had to wait in the emergency department until a doctor could come and explain what was going to happen.

Once the doctor had come to see me we went up to the ward (which was the oncology ward) and I got settled in. The next couple of days was getting to know more about the type of cancer I had. After I knew a bit about it the doctor said that I had to go for surgery so they could put a port in me for the IV Chemo that I would be having in a couple of days.

"The first few times I had IV chemo I was really sick for a couple of days afterwards."                    

By this stage, I was too sick to attend school so I had 6 months off at the end of year 6. I started to have lumbar punctures and bone marrows, and long days spent in out-patients having chemo through an IV. From 8:30am until about 5pm. I also spent a lot of time getting blood transfusions because my blood count was really low.

"After about 6 months of chemo I started to lose my hair."

I hated the fact that I would have no hair but many family members, friends and the hospital staff helped me through this and after a while I got used to it and reminded myself it would always grow back. After I had a few lumbar punctures I reacted badly to one of the chemo drugs they used in my spine and I had a 24 hour stroke. This meant I couldn’t use one whole side of my body and it happened to be my right side.

My mum noticed when she walked in the door the next morning because I couldn’t hold my spoon to eat my yoghurt. Mum rushed out the door to the nurse’s desk and asked them to come quick and see what was happening. After that it’s all a blur because everything happened so fast. All I remember is that there was about 10 different people in my room standing around my bed. After I had a stroke the doctors changed all my medication so it wouldn’t happen again.That was the scariest experience that I have ever had.

"Then it was back to the long days in out-patients getting chemo."

After a while I got really restless and didn’t want to be there anymore but again everyone helped me through the hard times. After 2 years of IV chemo it was time to have the tablet form of chemo; by this time my hair was growing back and things were looking more positive.

I was going to school (year 7) and some of the students in the younger grades teased me because I had no hair and I had a feeding tube in at that time. My school did some puppet shows to explain why some students have no hair and wear a hat instead. I had to take four different chemo tablets a day and I wasn’t very good at remembering to take them. As time passed some of the kids I met in the hospital either recovered or passed away because the cancer was too far gone, the chemo wasn’t doing anything or the type of cancer they had was rare.

"It has been four years now since I was diagnosed."

I go for regular checkups at the hospital to make sure that everything is alright and that the cancer hasn’t come back. I also go to the doctor for regular blood tests just in case. My brothers and sisters looked after me when I was at home and offered to help me when I was having trouble with something. Mum decided to join us up with Camp Quality to gain extra support and help us through it a bit more.

After a couple of years with Camp Quality I have now decided to join up with CanTeen to get to know more people like me, or who have had someone close to them go through a scary journey like I have.