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Shocking! I haven't written at all this year! Truth be told I have been either madly busy or lolling about recovering. I may be 99% recovered but I still have times when my body firmly tells me I still need to look after Number 1.

Nursing-wise I have one more (very long) management placement to complete plus an essay and a portfolio to finish. Then that will be it and if all goes to plan I shall be working somewhere in the James Cook University Hospital. The plan at the moment is to work on a ward for a year, max two years then look for a job either in district nursing or in a hospice.

My management placement is on the colorectal surgery ward, I am pleased that it is surgery as I prefer that to medical. I would have preferred vascular but colorectal is fine. I don't know much about it so I will learn plenty. It has just struck me that my first year ward was gastro and my final placement is in a related field. Luckily I am used to dealing with shit so it won't phase me!

This week is a study week but as I have no resits or resubmissions all I have had to do is to organise my portfolio so that it will be ready to sign off when I see my tutor on Tuesday. Otherwise I have painted my nails, read and knitted. Hopefully the rest of the week will be on similar lines.

It has been a very mixed year for me, but the general trend has been onwards and upwards. This time last year I was facing my final round of chemotherapy, looking like an extra from a Hammer Horror film and feeling worse. 12 months on I look like myself, a new myself but healthy and getting better everyday.

Since my last post I have finished uni for a Christmas rest, much anticipated I must say. I do have work to do but I have decided to leave it until after New Year as I am just weary and feel I will produce better work if I am rested. In the run up to Christmas I took on a lot of shifts at the hospice, I really enjoy working there and though it obviously has it's sad aspects to the job it is a very lovely place to work. I also had a much anticipated day trip to York to meet

dozydormouse. It was a very mild day and not too busy, midweek trips are clearly the way forward. It was splendid to see her and we had a wonderful potter around and found a lovely restaurant to lunch in. York at Christmas is not to be missed.

Christmas itself was very quiet; just me and the parents. I have done very little since, lots of faffing around on the internet, reading books and a bit of knitting. The back of my mind has been telling me to switch my laptop on but I have ignored it until tomorrow. Then I shall beaver away all week as I have a reward waiting for me at the end. It is a day trip to Newcastle next weekend, organised only today. We are celebrating a friend's Special Birthday and Newcastle was her choice.

So it seems I shall begin the year as I mean to go on....Lots of nasty academic work with highlights of seeing friends. Can't be bad!

I have had another birthday so it must be December. The fact that Christmas has ceased to dribble and started to flood is another marker of the turning of the year. Incidentally when is the earliest you have seen decorations go up? Mine was !2th November but my friend saw somebody's house decorated in August. Yes, I too am speechless.

This coming week is a study week at uni but I have a meeting with my dissertation supervisor on Monday, an early shift on Tuesday and a night shift on Wednesday at the hospice, plus a dissertation to write. Well, not write fully but I would like the bulk of it out of the way by Christmas as I have a pharmacology exam and a drug calcs exam in January, with the disseration due in on 2nd February. There's no rest for the wicked!

I think I might have to write a timetable.

After seeing my consultant on Thursday, who took one look at my chest and exclaimed "Beautiful!" I decided to treat myself to some new bras. Only I went and ordered the wrong size. How can I not know my own bra size, which has been the same for years?

Still blonde in spite of my new hair 😄

I am trying to remember what I have done this week. I need to get into a proper routine with uni work, plodding steadily is not the way forward. I have more or less finished my Christmas shopping, just Mum and Dad's to get but theirs can wait until next bursary day as I don't have to post theirs. Mum paid for my hair to be cut on Saturday - well, she went to get her hair done on Friday and paid then so all I had to do was to turn up on Saturday morning as per her orders. It badly needed doing - I was starting to resemble Sid Vicious!

My hairdresser has been doing my hair and Mum's for 30 years - or at least she will next year and she always does an excellent job. I had been going to a different hair salon which was easier to get to on the bus but when my hair started falling out with chemo I went to see Fran and she is doing a great job cutting it with a view to growing it. It hasn't got much more growing to do before it is a bob and she has cut it so it will grow that way. Once it's there I shall discuss colour with her. It is a nice colour but the curl makes it less shiny than before so a colour might just perk it up a bit. If it does as it has been told it will grow into a 1930s style curly bob!

How appalling, I haven't written since 25th April. So much for regular blogging!

A quick update since then - all cancer treatement is finished and I feel better than I have done for years. Every now and then I crash, which I think is my body telling me I'm not quite 100% yet - more like 97%. My hair is growing back very nicely, although not as fast as I would like. It has also come back black, rather than the red/blonde it has been for the previous 39 years of my life. One of the hospital porters said it made me look like a young Elizabeth Taylor. I can live with that!

I have completed my 2nd year of nursing and am well into my third year - the end is looming far too quickly for my liking. Thankfully only two exams and one of those is a practical rather than written. However there is the question of 2 4,000 word assignments and an 8,000 word project to complete, plus a portfolio of evidence from placement. Oh well, it keeps me out of mischief, I suppose. I have also got a job as a healthcare assistant on the nursing bank at my local hospital and also at a hospice which is not quite so local. I am still waiting for the final bits of officialdom to be completed (reference requests for one, Occ Health report for the other) then I can start working. I was hoping to get some hours in before Christmas so I had a bit of extra cash for the festive season but it is not to be.

In other news I have had a good sort of my clothes, sending a lot of ones that don't fit to charity. I've also tidied out the junk heap in the bottom of my wardrobe and stored everything in a small chest of drawers which I picked up in a charity warehouse. It looks so much tidier which makes me happy. I am trying to keep on top of my tidying as when I am buried in work it all tends to collect in heaps and then it is a daunting task, whereas if I do a bit each week it might not get to that point. I am having a bit of a handmade Christmas this year, so am frantically finishing things off that are intended as gifts as the majority need to be posted. November has crept up on me this year, I keep thinking it ought to be September - it certainly doesn't feel as late as November!

I am hoping that I will be able to keep to posting weekly - I love reading other people's doings so it follows that they may enjoy mine.

Healthwise I am getting better but there is still a long way to go. I keep finding bits of my brain that don't quite work as well as they used to but apparently it can take a year for all that to recover. I shall have to be more organised about Lists to ensure I don't forget anything important.

I had a lovely weekend in London helping

dozydormouse to celebrate her birthday. The break really did me some good, although I was very tired when I got home (this seems to be the new norm). I wish my student budget allowed for more things but I can't even live on it day to day (e.g. my bursary went in Friday and by this morning it had all gone out again, the only "luxury" I have bought was some new mascara. I now have about £20 to last me until the third Friday in May!!) I need to complete my application to the nursing bank so that I can earn some money. I would have done it last year but life went pearshaped just as I was about to complete the application. Even if I only did one or two night or weekend shifts a month it would be a help.

Depressing financial things aside, I passed my final tripartite, which mean that both academic and placement mentors consider me to be competent as a nurse. Now all I need to do is to pass my assignments, get through my make up periods and ensure that I look after myself properly ready for third year. Actually I am sure there are a lot more things I need to do but I can't remember them - note to self: write down rememberings immediately so you don't forget them!

I had other things that I wanted to write about but I had to pause to answer the phone and now I can't remember them at all. It is a bit of a worry....

Since losing Alfie a month ago Juno has been very needy and she sits and cries all the time until even Dad said that he thought she was lonely. So Mum and I acted quickly before he could change his mind! We decided on a kitten as Juno wouldn't tolerate another adult cat, and we have since discovered that it isn't a good idea anyway. I have made a list of local cat and animal shelters which Mum is going to ring when I'm at work and today we went to the RSPCA centre just in case they had any kittens. They didn't. Apparently it isn't the time of year for kittens, so Mum will ring the other places and see if they have any before we decide to wait a few more weeks.

I just hope Juno appreciates our efforts!

Every time in the last couple of weeks that I have sat down to write here something has come up and prevented me from doing so. However, a quick catch up in bullet points

• I completed and passed my mid point tripartite with flying colours. I also completed my surgical placement, which I enjoyed very much.

• My radiotherapy finished on 28th Feb and I have completed the unpleasant and inconvenient part of my treatment.

• I have begun a new placment in conorary care and I am loving it. There is so much to learn but everybody is so committed to helping students to learn and makes it enjoyable and relevant.

• My hair is growing back and I look a lot like Sinead O'Connor circa 1990. I have invested in caffiene shampoo upon the recommendation of some ladies on my bc forum and my parents are treating me to a new Mason Pearson hairbrush so hopefully my hair will grow back quickly and lusciously. I have ordered curls and my previously blonde hair is coming through dark brown or black, with lighter patches. It will be interesting to see what I end up with.

The past few shifts have been the NHS at it's worst. Granted there weren't people on trollies in the corridor but that's probably because we're nowhere near A&E, however there are odd patients who have nothing to do with our ward speciality, which is a challenge. I spent part of today with our vascular physios learinng how they rehabilitate amputees, which I found so interesting and I will hopefully go back as all today's patients were above knee amputees and they wanted me to see below the knee as well.

I am watching Further Back In Time For Dinner before I retire. Even short (9 hour!) shifts are tiring at the moment.

Not much has been going on since my last post. I am still enjoying my placement, although I had a wobble over my ability to provide personal care - of all things! I've been doing personal care on others for the last 15 years so God knows what was going on in my head. I blame a combination of cytotoxic drugs and radioactivity.

I have started radiotherapy; 3 sessions down, 17 to go. It is bearable and an improvement on chemo. I suspect my skin is going to object fairly soon but I expected that as I have very fair skin which burns easily. Hopefully the tiredness won't be too bad as I have an exam to prepare for as well as an assignment to finish by 3rd March. I really must motivate myself to get going on some academic work pretty soon! Any help with finding ooomph will be much appreciated.

A whole month and I've posted a few entries. How long will that last? January has been a funny old month but I have improved a lot healthwise during it so I can't complain. I am loving my placement and now I've settled a bit it is great to realise that I haven't forgotten everything from first year. It is now a question of building confidence in my own abilities. The portfolio doesn't hold quite the same horror either as many aspects are the same as first year. The case study on the other hand.....

I finally switched on my laptop, mainly to set up a new forum (long story) but it meant that I finally got around to opening my long abandoned assignment. Having read what I have written it has given me the shove I need to start again. Tomorrow, but I am on my own for most of the day so I will find it easier to settle down to work. The 3rd March will come around all too quickly and I have an exam around then too. Ack, too much work!!!!!

Yesterday would have been chemo day so we are celebrating it as "the day I didn't have chemo"! Today we are going out for a special lunch to celebrate that and mine and Dad's belated birthdays. The side effects are slowly diminishing and I am starting to feel a lot better. Radiotherapy starts next week so I am hoping what my consultant said is true and I won't be affected by it too much.

I began placement on Monday and it felt so good to be back in the thick of things. Obviously there are many more rules in place for me due to fatigue and a greater risk of infection. I am on a surgical ward so the main ones are shorter shifts and not being allowed to nurse patients who are barrier nursed. Everybody on the ward is lovely (a couple of patients excepted!) and very supportive. I felt so welcomed and my first day didn't feel like a first day at all. There are lots of opportunities to work with the various teams connected to the ward so I think this will be a very interesting and enjoyable placement.

It is such a nice feeling knowing that i won't have to go and be poisoned next Wednesday! I am slowly feeling better but the tiredness is still a problem, although tiredness will be a problem for months to come so I may as well get used to it and stop moaning. I went to my local yarn shop in Saltburn this morning and spent my birthday gift voucher on some lovely red West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley DK which will become a cardigan once I have enough ooomph to knit more than a couple of short rows at a time. Until then it is socks and mitred square blanket knitting that will keep me occupied.

Not that I will have much time for lots of knitting as I have an asssignment due in 3rd March, an exam scenario released at the end of February to plan for the exam at the end of March, another assignment due - although I have an extension for that one which releases a bit of pressure. This is in addition to full time placement hours, a portfolio to complete and a case study to write up by the end of June! I need a nap just thinking about it all :D

Not much has been going on in my world. I am recovering from final chemo more slowly than I would like but at the same rate I have recovered from the previous five so I have absolutely no grounds for complaint. I am now at the stage where I feel more like eating but I am still very picky about what I eat. I literally have to eat what I fancy as anything else makes me feel sick!

I am slowly restoring order to the pigsty in which I am living. Yesterday I managed to change the bed, which guarantees feeling better. I also put away the piles of clean clothes that have been getting higher and higher since Christmas. I have a few Christmas presents which I still need to post, and as I discovered this morning I still need to wrap!!!

I am feeling rather miffed as I have been invited out tomorrow with my old workmates, to a Chinese buffet (the nice kind that cook everything fresh) and I won't be able to go as my stomach simply isn't up to it. I feel like having a right royal paddy about it because it isn't fair, why me etc etc etc. Oh well, by the time I'm feeling better I shall have to treat myself to a nice takeaway of some kind instead. Obviously it won't be quite the same but at least I won't have to cook it.

I have been terrible at posting on my online journal spaces and having another may not be the wisest move but we'll see how I get on. I don't know how many of my old LJ readers will find me here but again, what will be, will be.

So this year so far I have completed chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer which was diagnosed in July 2016. I had surgery in August 2016 and was very lucky that the cancer hadn't spread from the tumour so I was techincally cured, but was advised a course of chemo and radiotherapy due to age and severity of cancer. It was the last thing I wanted but it is the best thing for me. Chemo was truly a horrible experience and I am glad it is over. As I only had my final dose two days ago I am feeling pretty grotty but it is pleasant to know as I start to feel better I shall go on feeling better this time. I am assured that radiotherapy is a walk in the park in comparison so I am hoping that is so.

All of this hasn't stopped me carrying on with my nursing training, the university have been excellent and very supportive and my hospital placements are led by the university so there shouldn't be any problems there. It is a struggle at times but much better than not doing anything with my time and swelling on myself. I can't imagine anything worse!!

So that's a brief update on what is happening chez Anna. Onwards and upwards are the keywords for the first part of this year.

Current Mood: thoughtful

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NurseNancyLou

April 2018

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Goodbye 2017
December already!
Only me!
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Ooops!
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So that was January?
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New Year, Same Old Me

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