Thrills, pills and a headscarf

"Tired of trying to cram her sparkly, star-shaped self into society's beige square holes, she chose to embrace her ridiculous awesomeness and shine like the freaking supernova she was meant to be." My aunt posted this quote months ago and I just had to save it, knowing it was exactly what I want to say in this post! This post is probably the most important one yet for me. I've known I've wanted to write it for sometime, I've spoken to large groups of teenagers just scratching the surface on this topic and I feel like now is the time. It's the time because this is the month of my 32nd birthday (I know many of you will be shocked I'm not turning 24 again this year!), and it's also the month I'm going to start the process of losing my physical identity again as I begin back on intravenous chemotherapy. To be honest my physical identity is starting to feel so fluid I'm not really sure I know what it is anymore. It's also the tim...

I've always said that travelling gave me an education I could never buy. One that could never be taught in schools or universities; that simply needs to be learnt as each opportunity presents itself. Those opportunities could be great fun or amazingly challenging. All of them important to deal with. I feel so thankful to have had another four weeks to continue my education in life and as slow as I've been on my blogs I want to share some of those learnings. Some useful, some not. Language is great in it's ambiguity: I thought I spoke Spanish to a point. I guess that's still strictly true but we had some fun experiences with it. It was quite empowering to realise I was still able to get by in Spanish, speak to people and get done what I needed to get done even if it wasn't perfect. What I did learn was there are many more differences between the Castellano I have learnt and South American Spanish. In some of many language confusions we established that ...

"I used to think time was a thief. But you give before you take. Time is a gift. Every minute. Every Second."  - Alice Kingsliegh from Alice through the Looking Glass. This quote really resonated with me the other day when watching the film for the second time (the first time thinking I was perfectly healthy and had decades left in my life). It made me really think about my appreciation of the time I have and the people and opportunities I have or have had in my life. About a month ago I took another blow to my already "not great" diagnosis. My treatment plan is out the window and lots of question marks started flying around my medical teams. What did I do in response to this news? Insisted we had dinner by the waterfront and the next morning I went to the beach. Sitting on the beach I was happy. Not a feeling many people might expect me to feel the day after that news but I felt so fortunate to be able to take myself to the beach, feel the sun shining do...

I bought a key ring with this very statement (one I still believe in) in March in this year after my first cancer diagnosis and before the second, much worse, diagnosis. My fight started this year in January when I went in for surgery on my liver. Although the doctors were a bit confused by the scans I was assured it couldn't be cancer, I didn't have the right indicators for it. After being sliced open, as I like to term it, my surgeon realised I actually had a huge tumour (over 2 kg!) which had taken possession of my adrenal gland. Thankfully, having such an amazing surgeon he quickly changed tack and it was removed. I named her Gertrude the Great - because why not? It was a couple of weeks later that the cancer diagnosis came back, one that took me by total surprise. I guess I'd taken being a healthy person for granted all this time and even with the tumour didn't really believe I could have cancer. It's a very weird thing looking mortality in the face at 30....