My Diary – December 2008

Sunday 28th December 2008

Happy belated Christmas!!

I thought it was about time I updated again, and I have lots of news as it’s been a busy, busy month, so here are the best bits…

On Thursday 20th November, I had tea with the Lord Mayor of Canterbury. Her chauffeur came in the morning to pick me, Mum and my guide communicator, Nikki, up and take us to Tower House, which is the Lord Mayor’s Parlour. We stayed for over an hour and had tea, biscuits and a chat - one of my favourite things to do! I was allowed to feel and wear the Lord Mayor’s chain of office, and I also felt the mace, a sword and the Burghmote Horn which is 900 years old.

On Monday 24th November I went to Kent & Canterbury Hospital for my pre-op check. Mum wondered why most people had broken arms or legs in plaster and then discovered we weren’t meant to be there until the next day! Mum got the day wrong, but I suppose it’s better to be a day early than a day late. I had a chat with the nurse, had my blood pressure and heart rate done, which were both fine which was obviously good news.

On Friday 28th November I had a book signing at the Horsebridge Centre in Whitstabubble. It went well and luckily people turned up! I had a collection for Nicole’s Fund which raised £59, so I was chuffed. Every little helps after all.

On Saturday 29th November I had my hair extensions taken out - sob! They had been in for five months, and quite a few had already fallen out, so it was starting to look a bit rubbish. The good news though is that my hair is quite long now even without the extensions! It’s just past my shoulders and still curly which is good!

On Tuesday 2nd December I went to the Philip Lawrence Award ceremony in London. It was presented by Sir Trevor Macdonald again, and the Home Secretary was also there and gave a speech. There was a performance from the hip hop dance group, Flava, who people might remember from ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, and they were brilliant. I obviously couldn’t see the dancing, but the music was loud enough for me to hear it.

On Wednesday 3rd I went to my publisher’s Christmas party in London. It’s the time when all their authors and illustrators get together, so it makes me feel very professional, ha ha! Well I am now, as I was offered my second publishing contract while I was there! Yep people, my second book is on its way! But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until around January 2010. It’ll be worth it though! I’ll reveal more details soon…

The next day, on Thursday 4th, I was in London again, this time at the Emirates Stadium - Arsenal Football Club. It was the Teenage Cancer Trust’s work get-together, and I was invited along to give a speech. It was filmed by the BBC who are doing a documentary about me at the moment. I received a standing ovation again which was nice! There were over seventy people there who all work for TCT, so it was great to meet them. I also met one of the football players, Manu Eboué, who came in dressed as Santa! Helen, who is the main person I work with at TCT, gave me a great present, the Andrex winter puppy. You might have seen the advert about it with Mcfly promoting them - so it’s double cuteness! (I love them!), and the winter puppy is being sold to raise money for TCT. He’s very cute and has a bobble hat and scarf!

On Friday 5th I had the bladder stone removed. It was possibly the worst day to do it as I was shattered from all the travelling to and from London, and Mum was having the first day of a migraine and felt awful. We had to be at the hospital for 10.30am, and Nikki came to the rescue and drove us there as Mum didn’t feel up to it. She brought her baby, Jak, with her who is very cute. When I was having the check stuff done, like my blood pressure and the MRSA swab, and the swab was put up my nose and moved around, Jak stuck his finger up his nose and wiggled it around to copy it! Then the swab was put under my arm and Jak lifted his arm up and put his hand in his armpit! He’s very clever for a 17 month old. When Nikki says to him that they’re going over to see Nicole, he puts his hand in his palm and moves it around like the signing, which he doesn’t do with other people’s names that Nikki says. How clever huh?! They stayed with us until lunchtime, then I went to lie down and Mum was still feeling awful. This was my first experience of being on an adult ward, and neither of us liked it. It was full of old men, and I didn’t feel comfortable with it. Another bad thing about the ward was being able to smell the food but not being allowed to eat it because of the ‘nil by mouth’ rule. It smelt lovely, but I’m quite sure it wasn’t!

My op was supposed to be at 3pm, but I didn’t go down to theatre until 4.45pm. I had the gas mask which seemed to take ages to work this time. Just as I was going under, Mum had to run off to be sick! But she then came back in time. I kept wiggling my fingers to let them know I was still awake. Mum was signing on my hand to breathe in deeply, but it was so difficult to concentrate on the signing while the world kind of went fuzzy. The smell was very strong too. It was quite scary actually, but I had to try not to panic. It must have taken almost a minute for me to go under, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up, and I felt quite rough to say the least. My throat was sore from the tube that had been stuck down it, and my hand was very painful from the cannula. It was the second time a needle had gone in it that week as I’d had blood taken earlier in the week to check everything was ok before the op, so it was already bruised. I was still having fluid dripped into my hand, so it had to stay in for about an hour and a half after I woke up. This was my ninth anaesthetic, but it felt the strangest. When I woke up at first I felt awful and wanted to sleep. I was like that for about fifteen minutes, then as quick as you can click your fingers, I felt normal again, and that means… drinking tea! Yep, within twenty minutes of my operation finishing, I was drinking tea! It wasn’t Tetley though, but I suppose I can’t have it all. The operation had taken about an hour, which was a bit longer than the surgeon thought it would take. Probably because the stone was bigger than he was expecting - it was the size of an egg! He said it was the biggest he had ever seen. Now why doesn’t that surprise me! So that was me, a stone lighter in an hour. Not bad huh?!

They had prepared a bed for me to stay, but luckily I came home that night at about 10.30pm, and had a rubbish night’s sleep. I’d been looking forward to getting a decent kip after the anaesthetic, but I didn’t actually fall asleep until after 8am. Every time I dozed off during the night, I’d jump awake again. It felt like I was going under anaesthetic again - it was really weird. My legs and body kept shaking too and I was still quite sore. I had about two hours’ sleep in the morning, so was feeling a bit rubbish on Saturday. I then ate for the first time in over 24 hours, as I’d had to stop eating for the operation and after it I just wasn’t in the mood to eat. I think the op has helped though. I still get backache - I always will because of the damage to it over the years - but I’m able to put up with it now whereas before it was unbearable. It would bring tears to my eyes it was that bad, and not even codeine would take the pain away, but now I’m back just to taking paracetamol and it seems to help quite a bit. So, that seems to be the end of that problem. I wonder what’s next!

On Sunday 21st Helen from TCT came over with her husband, Glen, and dog, Jasper. Glen went to the beach with Jasper, Molly and Daizy, but Daizy doesn’t like men so ran home on her own, bless her! Luckily we live very near to the beach, so she didn’t have far to go and Glen was right behind her! Helen gave me an amazing present which Jimmyteens TV gave to her for me. You may remember my speech at the ‘Find Your Sense of Tumour’ conference in October which was shown on their website. Well, they’ve now given me a video camera so that I can film myself whenever I want! The brilliant thing is that it’s tiny, a bit like a little digital camera, it comes in a little bag, and guess what colour it is? Yep… pink!! It’s brilliant and when Helen gave it to me my reaction was, “Oh my god. I love it! Do I have to give it back?” The answer is no! It’s for me to keep and film myself, but I have to send the footage to Jimmyteens every now and again, so you may get to see some of it one day - beware!

And so now to Christmas Day. It was good! It was the first time in six years that I haven’t been in hospital, ill or having treatment, so it was nice. It did feel quite strange though. I woke up at 4.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep, but luckily for Mum I didn’t wake her up until after 7am. I opened the presents that I had here and got some lovely ones including a little cup and saucer charm for my bracelet which I absolutely love. I already have a teapot on the bracelet which has a flip up lid, so now I have something to put the tea in! I also got an Archers set which included a tiny bottle of Archers which is the perfect size for my handbag. Now when I go to posh places and they just have fresh orange, I can whip out my mini bottle of Archers and add a bit of that - perfect! I’m going to keep the bottle afterwards too and just keep refilling it from the big bottle I have! My other presents included a giant tube of pink Smarties which I was amazed by. It’s a whole tube of just pink ones, it’s brilliant! That was from Nikki, and she also got me a box of royal biscuits to remind me of our first visit to Clarence House in the summer. I loved these biscuits so much when we were there that I was given a bundle to bring home! Honestly, only I could go somewhere like Clarence House and end up coming home with the biscuits! I have another present from Nikki to come but I don’t know what it is yet. It’s always quite nice getting presents after Xmas I think. My other presents included some vouchers, which is always good because I love shopping, Katie Price’s perfume, which is brilliant because I’m a massive fan of hers, clothes, a lovely silver necklace and some other prezzies. We then went to Linda’s where we had a roast dinner, then opened more presents. I got a brilliant gingerbread man charm - he’s going to taste so nice next to my cup of tea, ha ha! And I got some more clothes and other little bits. We came home just after teatime, so it was a nice relaxed family Christmas Day.

On Boxing Day we went to my Auntie Jean and Uncle Ron’s house as usual, where it was more roast potatoes and presents. What a great combination! I got some more lovely presents, but one of my favourites was some sexy socks which are very girlie. One pair is black with pink diamante handbags on them! So beware, I may feel the need to flash my socks at you one day…

I think that just about sums up my main news. Thank you very much to Graham Butterfield, Naomi/Leah and David, Evelyn and Alex for donating on my Justgiving page this month. I really appreciate it, especially with it being Christmas. It is though, after all, the time for giving… Justgiving!

I will update more next month. I should have more exciting news, and I’ll tell you about the new award I’ve won!

Happy New Year!

Love Nicole xxx