My Diary – January 2008
Saturday
26th January 2008
A
message from Molly and Daizy
****** PLEASE VOTE FOR US!! ******
We have been shortlisted for a Dogs
Trust honour, in the ‘hero’ category, for the support we’ve given Nicole over
the last seven years.
We are up against four other great dogs,
so we really, really need your votes to help us win. Please click on the link
below to cast your vote:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article723942.ece
It’s really
easy to do. Just click on the photo of Molly’s cute little face and it will
give you our story. At the bottom of the page is a button to vote. Click on
that and it will take you to a page where you just tick the ‘Molly and Daizy’
box, enter the code provided and press vote. You have until the 5th February to
vote, so please spread the word and keep your paws crossed for us. Thank you!!
We’ll leave you with the photo from our
photoshoot last week. How cute do we look?!
*************************
Friday
25th January 2008
I have sad news to start off with. I
mentioned last week about the search for 17 year old Josh Beasley who went
missing on Christmas Eve. I’m sad to say that his body has been found in the
river Thames. Police don’t know how he got there, but don’t think anyone else
was involved. Thank you if you helped spread the word after reading my message.
On Wednesday I went to the Marsden to
see my oncologist, Darren. For the last month I’ve been getting really bad
backache and shooting pains in my hand and arm, which are the usual signs of my
tumours growing. They are also the symptoms of a urine infection and when I’m
feeling run down. I didn’t mention it to
anyone because I was on antibiotics for an infection, so I was going to see if
they took the symptoms away and that there was nothing to worry about, but they
were the wrong tablets and they didn’t work so I then had different
antibiotics. I still didn’t feel right
though, so I asked to see Darren to discuss having an MRI scan done.
I saw him on Wednesday and he agreed
that the only way to find out if my tumours are re-growing is to scan me.
Darren has always been very honest with me which I respect. He said he wouldn’t
talk about treatment because there’s no point until we get the results. I’m not
even going to think about it though.
I’ll hopefully be having my scan next week if they can fit me in. It
means another cannula which I’m not looking forward to, especially after my
last blood test where it took three attempts and my hand was bruised for a week
afterwards! I have my valium prepared though, so hopefully that helps... Something good did come from Wednesday
though, I don’t have to go to clinic next week for a check up on my ears after all. I bumped into the radiographer I would have
seen and told him I was fine, so he said I didn’t have to go to my
appointment. I knew I would manage to
get out of it somehow!
Book sales are going well, and I’ve had
some great reviews on it so far in my local papers. Here are two that I’ve found on the internet
which I think are really good.
http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/dryburghit.htm
and
www.hackwriters.com/waysee.htm
Now I really do need your help! Please,
please, please click on the link below and vote for Molly and Daizy to win the
hero dog category in the Dogs Trust Honours. They are up against four other
dogs, and there is a short video of each nominee on the website. If you click
on the photo of Molly it gives you our story, and there’s a button at the
bottom of the page for you to vote. We have until the 5th February to vote, so
please spread the word and keep your fingers crossed!
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article723942.ece
Thank you very, very, very much!
Finally, thank you Helen for donating on
my Justgiving page this week. Much appreciated!
Next week will be quite quiet again, but
the week after will be fun, so keep checking back!
Love Nicole xxx
***************************
Friday
18th January 2008
I haven’t done much since my last diary
entry because that was only on Monday.
On Wednesday Daniel and John from ‘The
Studio’ www.TheOnlyStudio.co.uk came to take a photo of me, Molly and
Daizy. My friend Liz from the Gazette, her dog Mully has also been
shortlisted for a Dogs Trust honour. Luckily in a different category! She is
friends with Daniel and John and they very kindly offered to take a free
professional photo of us with our dogs as a kind of ‘well done’. I had some photos taken of me with the dogs
on the couch. Then I sat on the pouffe, lowered myself onto the floor, turned
round to kneel against the pouffe with Molly and Daizy sitting on it in front
of me and had more photos taken. I then had to turn around and climb back onto
the pouffe and into my wheelchair. It’s the best work out I’ve had in ages! I
haven’t got the photo yet, but I’ll put it up here when I do. Instead you can
see the photo of me and the very cute lamb from Sunday. By the way, that’s not
a real tiger in the background!
Thursday I did absolutely nothing, and it was great! It’s the first day
in two months that I could stay in my pyjamas all day, so that’s what I did! I
caught up with my emails and writing letters to people, so I did do some
work...
A big thank you to Alex Meechan for donating
on my Justgiving page. I’m quite positive now that I can reach my £30,000
target by the end of the year. I only have £12,000 left to raise, so that’s
£1000 a month. That’s doable right?! I’m going to get started on my next
fundraising idea now. Any ideas please email me or leave a guest book message.
So that’s been my lovely quiet week.
Please make sure you read the entry I posted on Wednesday below. Thanks.
Love Nicole xxx
*******************
Wednesday
16th January 2008
This
is a special message where I’m asking you for your help again.
Josh Beasley is a 17 year old boy and he
went missing from Romney Road, Greenwich in South-East London on Christmas Eve
2007. He hasn’t been seen since.
I’ve been asked to post this to spread
the word and help find him. If you have any information or want to know any
more, then please visit: www.myspace.com/joshbeasleymissing Please help spread the word.
Thank you. xxx
*******************
Book
Launch 10th January 2008
Monday
14th January 2008
Sorry for the late diary entry, but us
authors are busy people you know!
On Tuesday Kelvin from Orion TV came to
film me about the thing I couldn’t mention last week, but can today! Molly and
Daizy have been shortlisted for a Dogs Trust honour in the hero category. It’s
a new award launched by the Dogs Trust to recognise what dogs do for their
owners, and I nominated Molly and Daizy for the support they’ve given me. I found out on the 3rd and was sooooo
excited! We’re going to a black tie event, yes even the dogs, next month where
we’ll find out if they’ve won. There are four other dogs in their category, so
fingers crossed. Even if they don’t win though, we’ll have had a great night
out, and they’re still my little heroes!
Back to Tuesday - Kelvin stayed three
hours and we went to the beach with the dogs. They’re going to show a 45 second
clip of each of the nominees on the night, so we were filmed at home and on the
beach, and they’ll edit it to capture their ‘essence’! The Sun newspaper is
sponsoring the hero dog category, and there will be something in the paper next
week about how to vote for each dog, so I’ll keep you posted!
The launch party preparations started on
Wednesday morning with my nails and eyebrows being done at my friend Gilly’s
house. I had my nails filed (ergh), cuticles pushed back and cut (also ergh),
and then painted. They’re a lovely shade of pink and have three black lines at
the side that come out a bit like flames, with a diamante at the top. I had my eyebrows waxed after that, so I left
looking better than when I arrived.
When we got home from Gilly’s there was
a lovely bouquet of lilies with a big pink bow on the doorstep. They had been
delivered by Interflora while we were out. They were from Sarah who used to
work at The Times Educational Supplement, where I had parts of my diary
published in their magazine in 2005. I’ve stayed in touch with Sarah since. It
was a lovely surprise and they smell gorgeous, so thank you Sarah!
I had my hair trimmed that night. I still haven’t quite decided if I’m going to
grow it or keep it short. I’m just maintaining it at the moment. My Dad arrived
at 8pm from Scotland, so it was quite a busy day.
Now to Thursday! I spent a few hours
with my Dad in the morning. I started getting ready at about 3.30pm, and our
taxi picked us up at 5.30pm to take us to The Horsebridge Centre in Whitstable,
where my launch party was being held. We were the first to arrive and Mum
described the hall as it was getting set up. There were big posters of my book,
pink helium balloons, little heart shaped chocolates covered in pink foil, pink
confetti on the tables and fantastic little pink cakes, each one with an
initial on, spelling out ‘The Way I See It’.
I was really impressed with those. There was also lots of normal food,
but I was just interested in the cakes!
At 6pm I had a short interview with our
local radio station, Invicta FM. It was pre recorded and was put out the next
day but we didn’t hear it. I also had an interview with Meridian News, and they
filmed some of the party too.
The hall started getting busy after that
as the party started at 7pm. I don’t actually know the exact number of people who
came, but it was over 100. I had invited family, friends, people from Demelza
and The Silver Lining Appeal, some doctors and nurses, local press and lots
more. The Lord Mayor was even there! Quite a few people had travelled a long
way to it from places like Scotland, London and Devon. I found it really
difficult to hear everyone and people had to keep shouting in my ear. As usual
I just nodded, smiled and agreed to everything!
Margaret, my publisher, made a lovely
speech at about 7.30pm and I was presented with a gorgeous silver book on a
chain with ‘The Way I See It’ engraved on it. I absolutely love it and it’s
great for promotion! It’s more subtle than carrying round a big poster of my
book! After I was given the necklace I
said a few words to thank everyone.
It was then time for me to sign my
books. I’ve had a stamp made of my signature. I wrote it on a piece of paper
and Hodder had two stamps made - one in black ink and one in a purpley pink. My
books were sold on the night for £5 each and the money went to The Silver
Lining Appeal. I was really touched by that and it made the night more special.
I had a queue of people wanting their books signed. I don’t know how many but
it took over an hour and my hands were really sore by the end of it!
I think about 170 books were sold on the
night. Hodder matched what was raised and rounded it up to make the total
£2000. I couldn’t believe it and was
presented with a big cheque at the end of the night. That now brings my total
raised for The Silver Lining Appeal to over £18,000.
We got home just after 10pm where I sat
in the living room with a cup of tea, a slice of chocolate cake from the party
and went through the night again. Mum told me the bits I wouldn’t have known
about, like who wore what etc, and I also got some lovely cards and presents
from people, and so I opened them. I was on Meridian that night, so we watched
that too. I didn’t get to bed until after midnight because people kept texting
me - they’d either seen me on the news, or were reading my book they’d bought
at the launch. I couldn’t sleep though and was still awake at 2.30am.
It was a very special night. Mum made a
comment afterwards that if the party had been her funeral, she would have been
happy with the people who turned up. There was such a nice atmosphere and
everyone looked as though they were enjoying themselves. Obviously at a funeral
it’s a different atmosphere and meaning, but hopefully you get my point. It
leads me on to thinking how you often don’t know what you mean to someone, or
what they mean to you until they’re gone, and by then it’s too late. Just think
about that for a while…
On Friday my agent, Lindsey, came round
(I love saying that!) as well as her business partner Kathryn, Margaret and
Evelyn. We discussed the next book and drank tea and ate cake. I went out for
lunch with Mum, Dad and Lee afterwards. I then came home stuffed, and started
to reply to my emails. I’ve had some lovely ones recently from people who have
read my book. I always reply to my emails, and it makes me smile when I then
get another email to say, “Oh my god you replied!” I love hearing from people
so please keep emailing.
On Saturday Dad went home. Mum started
reading my book to me in the afternoon. I wanted to see what all the fuss was
about! I’ve had it read to me in parts but I’ve always been listening for
mistakes and things to edit. Now I’m listening to it as an actual book. Mum’s
also describing the layout and what parts are pink etc, so I can get a picture
in my head. We’ve got half way through and I decided I had too much work to do
like my diary and replying to emails, so we stopped. It is a bit of a page
turner though, isn’t it?!
Yesterday we went to Linda’s house. They
live on a small holding so they have pigs, chickens and sheep. They’ve just had
some black lambs born and they’re so cute! I held a four day old lamb that was
white with black spots. It was tiny and just sat on my lap. It let me tickle
its ears and sniffed me now and again. It even licked me at one point. It was just
like a dog. His Mum had rejected him, so Linda has to bottle feed him. I
helped, but the milk kind of went everywhere. I so wanted to bring him home,
but I don’t think Molly and Daizy would have been too impressed. We took a
photo which I’ll put up with my next diary entry.
Thanks for all the lovely guest book
messages. I’ve never had so many! Please keep leaving them, and please also
leave you’re name. Thank you.
So my life is back to normal now -
whatever that is. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, so I’m just going
to take each day as it comes. Who’s betting though that it’ll be eventful!
Love Nicole xxx
*******************
Friday 4th January 2008
Happy New Year! I can’t believe it’s
2008!
Apologies for my last diary entry - I was
just having a down moment and I wrote that at the height of my tantrum, but I’m
feeling a lot calmer now. I’ve been doing yoga and deep breathing and all is
good in the world. Well, unless you read the papers…
Anyway, on Saturday, Matt from the
Whitstable Gazette came to interview me about my book. Matt’s known me for
about three and a half years, and he’s the first reporter I met from the
Gazette, so I like chatting to him. It’s the second interview I’ve done about
my book. I spoke to Joe from the Whitstable Times on Thursday, and I gave them
both a copy of my book so that they could review it! Their reviews were in the
paper this week and I was really pleased with them.
I have received some lovely emails and
guest book messages from complete strangers who have bought my book so far, and
the fact that they’ve done that and then gone to the effort of contacting me
has really cheered me up. It’s showing that my book is already having an impact
without it actually officially being out! I’m really excited about what the
future will bring now.
Three of my best friends came round on
New Year’s Day. We hadn’t had a chance to give each other our Christmas
presents, so we finally did on Tuesday. I felt quite Christmassy afterwards! I
got some lovely presents including a cocktail set with pink fluff round the
bottom of the glass and a little vodka bottle, so that will help me celebrate
over the next few weeks! Well, I might need to buy more vodka because the
bottle is really small, and I’ve got a lot of celebrating to do! I also got a
silver charm of a horse shoe for my bracelet which I love and hope it will
bring me luck in 2008.
I’ve made New Year’s resolutions, but
I’m not telling you all of them! I’m going to wait to see if I achieve them
first, then I’ll tell you. I’ve written a list of 20 things, some of them are
quite simple like tidy up my documents on my laptop and sort through my emails,
which actually will take days because I have thousands, and some are a bit more
difficult like give blood (eek!) and set up my own business! I’ll keep you
posted on how those go!
I’ve started to do one of my resolutions
already, which is to start a family of adopted animals. It is something I’ve
wanted to do for years. I’ve started my collection by sponsoring a swan at: www.swanuk.org.uk which is a sanctuary in Kingston upon Thames. I’m hopefully going to
visit it soon.
Wednesday was my last day of getting
transport to the Marsden while having my radiotherapy. Family and friends are
taking me on the other days. It all ran smoothly apart from the fact that the
driver turned up at 7.10am and I’d only just woken up and wasn’t ready! We
weren’t expecting him ‘til 8.30. We had to pick two other people up on the way
- one in Dartford and one in Essex! We arrived an hour early, so there was time
for a morning fix of tea before my treatment. I had clinic afterwards which
basically went like this: “How are you?”, “Fine thanks”, “Any problems?”, “No”,
“Ok, well today’s your last clinic while you’re on treatment, so we’ll see you
in four weeks’ time for a check up”, “Ok thanks, bye”, and then we left! If
only all doctors’ visits were like that!
I really can’t be bothered going to
clinic in four weeks’ time because it will basically be four hours of
travelling to have the same conversation, but I have to go. I’ll make sure I
moan about it though! I’m going to have an MRI scan in about six weeks’ time
just as a check up and to have another look at the tumours in my ears. I’ll
have scar tissue there now from the radiotherapy, so the scan will look
different to the ones I had a couple of months ago, and they need to have an
up-to-date scan to check for any changes in the future.
We then went for transport and only
waited about fifteen minutes. The driver said he was ready and Mum spotted one
of the ladies who had come with us in the morning at the chemist getting her
prescription. Mum asked the driver if he was taking her home too and he said
no, because she wasn’t ready. Mum said she was probably just waiting for her
medicine, so the driver decided he might as well take her home in the same car
with us. Well, half an hour later when she still didn’t have her prescription,
Mum was kind of regretting saying anything. We waited so long that the third
woman was then ready, so that added another 2 hours onto our journey. I kept
poking her to let her know I wasn’t happy. Still, I got my own back on her
because she had to sit in the middle so got the hump, literally. I told her
that her New Year’s resolution is to keep her mouth shut, but that’s going to
be really difficult – you know what she’s like... We finally got home after
4pm. Needless to say I wasn’t in the best of moods with my mother that day!
We heard the news on the way home about
the fire at The Royal Marsden Hospital. I’ve had a few emails since then asking
if I’m ok and if it affects my treatment, but I’m pleased to say I’m fine.
There are two Marsden hospitals. I go to the Surrey one and the one that caught
fire is the one in Fulham. I was originally going to go to the Fulham one when
they thought I would need radiotherapy on both my ears, but as it is, I’m only
having treatment on one ear.
Thursday was a great day, but I can’t
say why just yet. I got some fantastic news but it has to stay a bit hush hush
at the moment! I can announce it on the 14th! I can assure you though that
whatever you’re thinking it is, it probably isn’t. All will be revealed!
Thank you concert-goer (John) for
donating on my Justgiving page. I hope you had a good birthday! Thank you also
to Marina and David for donating. I really appreciate people’s generosity in
helping me reach my target. I have so far raised £16,116.99 for The Silver
Lining Appeal, so I’ve got just under £14,000 left to reach my target which I’d
like to raise by the end of the year. I know it’s a bit of a challenge, but I’m
prepared to give it a go!
I finish my radiotherapy on Monday. The
only way is up from then on!
Please keep signing the guest book.
Thanks!
Love Nicole xxx
