Living in Spite Of
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Coming to terms with any illness, be it the days ahead of dealing with a simple cold, or digesting the fact you have a brain tumour, is no easy feat. Being a 19 year old, however, makes it seem that little bit harder. Brain tumours are not the end of your life, sometimes they are just the beginning. And I should know, because I began by getting rid of mine.
Living in Spite Of
4y ago
For the last year and a half I have (somewhat) documented my journey going through how it feels to be diagnosed and the subsequent treatment I have gone through upon having a brain tumour. Had I been told years previous that my entire life and everything in it would literally be thrown in the air I probably would have scoffed at the idea and gone on with my life. 19 year olds don’t get tumours, and they don’t go through treatment till they’re 21. Except they do, and I did. The year 2020 was meant to be the year for us all, we entered a new decade with such hope and perseverance and the daily t ..read more
Living in Spite Of
4y ago
It has been some time since I last sat at my keyboard writing a blog post, having been around 6 months since I wanted to sit and write something for the sake of writing. As of this week I will firmly be in my 8th month of chemotherapy out of 12, and it is only recently with the decrease in my prescription have I felt the urge and motivation to do anything at all. I was determined to enter the new year – the new decade – with a ‘This will be THE year’ mantra that started strong with another clear and stable MRI scan, but naturally the facade began to crumble and the days felt like they were fle ..read more
Living in Spite Of
5y ago
A key part of my diagnosis has been the treatment, the most prevalent of all being brain surgery. The biggest, scariest sounding surgery you could possibly ever have, one in which I’ve been ‘fortunate’ enough to only need 3 times. I initially had a biopsy, to find out what type of tumour Bertherb really was, we already knew he was a damn nuisance but we had a better chance of fighting him if we knew just how to repel him. The next two surgeries were to remove the rest of the tumour, which unfortunately had returned by January of this year. So what is like really like to have brain surgery? Ex ..read more
Living in Spite Of
5y ago
There seems to be a running theme in the last few months, everyone appears to have lost their motivation, me included. After writing my previous blog post at the beginning of June I had written in my planner when I wanted to blog more, and I had even noted some ideas in my phone about more topics I could delve into while sitting around in London, waiting for my ovaries to cook up some eggs. The only genuine excuse I had for not posting the following week was that I actually had the procedure done, and the last thing I felt like doing was writing a blog post while my uterus felt incredibly brui ..read more
Living in Spite Of
5y ago
The last week has not been my finest, I must admit. I've had some dreaded headaches that absolutely terrified me, but there's a good chance my decision of lugging a mattress into my house alone did not help my head; luckily I had a pre-planned MRI scan following my stint of radiotherapy, so if there does end up being something wrong, at least we've caught it early on. It was recommended by a family member that I talk about my anxiety from the last week, so here I am. After a year of headaches, any headache I get now absolutely scares the shit out of me, so spending Thursday in bed with a head ..read more
Living in Spite Of
5y ago
Anyone who’s known me for longer than 2 years is probably aware that my brain is pretty shite. From around the age of 13, I found myself falling into the woes of depression that went untreated and officially undiagnosed for a good 3/4 years before I felt I had no way out. In my trademark morbid comedy, I find myself saying that my brain couldn’t successfully get me to kill myself, so it tried to grow a tumour instead. Very much a ‘You just cannot get the staff these days,’ type mantra. This week marks the beginning of mental health awareness week, and as someone who has dealt with the troubles ..read more
Living in Spite Of
5y ago
6.5 weeks later, and I've finally finished radiotherapy. 33 sessions, approximately an hour and a half of actual treatment, and it's all finished. My own preconceptions of radiotherapy were incredibly wrong, and before diagnosis I had assumed radiotherapy was chemotherapy, and I never really thought beyond that. I was very wrong, and didn't know what to expect. So, what is it actually like going through radiotherapy? To begin with, it's very overwhelming. I distinctly remember sitting at the kitchen table with my nan crying over my chicken tikka masala because I was so scared, the prospect of ..read more