On the omnipresent quest to find my sense of tumour

Good morning (ok, it's afternoon, but I only just got up so to me it's the morning so live with it smellygayface) to all and a few and some and partial, I am finally here to tell you the stories of Find Your Sense Of Tumour 2012, everyone's favorite conference for all the young cancer people from across the UK and Sweden. There are so many that I'm bound to forget a few, as you all know my memory is hazy and I'm also suffering from some kind of virus that I managed to catch there. I sort of feel like someone tipped concrete up my nose then went over it with one of those rollers but I am denying it because I'm going to see Rammstein on Friday and I AM NOT ILL. NOT AT ALL. THERE IS NO VIRUS TO SEE HERE AND NO NEED FOR ME TO PHONE THE HOSPITAL. FULL STOP. But anyway, I got on a bus sometime on Friday morning, then got on another bus, then I got on a third bus then I arrived at WESTON PARK HOSPITAL where all the cancer homies were meeting. Luckily I bumped into one of my cancer friends at the lifts who I then followed to the TCTU because I don't really know my way around Weston Park, it's not my hospital. It's no Hallamshire! Upon my arrival a dance rehersal was happening. Every year all the different areas all enter a dance into the big showcase and I had so far been adamant that I would play no part in any dancing of any form... Yet somehow, within five minutes I seemed to be joining in. I used muscles I never even knew I had!

Eventually all the young cancer patients were rounded up and herded onto the partybus. What is a partybus, I hear you ask? Well, it's like a bus but with added PARTY. There are speakers that play chav music to your heart's content and tv screens that play something although I'm not sure what because they weren't on. I'd love to say that we spent the whole journey there having some controversial raucous party but we actually did a communal crossword. There was a one legged duck waiting outside our chalet (see photo in previous post) to greet us, we thanked him with bread and sausage roll. There was settling in and tea and this and that and this is about the point where my sense of time ends and the madness begun. Actually the madness begun was before this but this is when the dementia and WHICH DAY IS SATURDAY WHERE AM I WHICH ORDER DID THESE THINGS HAPPEN set in so I'm afraid it's going to be one of those posts where I just list some random events in a non sequential order.... Sorry. Here goes pillows!

1. There were lots of talks on things as varied as fertility and food and body issues and late diagnosis and all the important things that a well rounded cancer patient should know. I would actually quite like to do a talk about body image, I should really email someone about that, being someone who is very vain, has a weight that's varied by four stone and used to wear heels and wigs while in isolation I think I'm probably quite an expert. But yeah, most of the talks were good, especially Hardeep Singh who was a million times better than last year because he didn't cook things and make half the room want to rop. And the guy who was the first person to climb after surviving cancer which I'd give him about a 10/10 for.

2. My reputation among UK cancer patients was slightly destroyed all by the handiwork of a certain young engineer who shall remain unnamed. During the weekend we could 'tweet' in out feelings and comments and stories and some of them were read out by the main presenter people. My spilling soggy biscuit down my front and comments about masturbation dancing were both read out (well, the second one was censored but word quickly go round), hence I am now known in certain circles as soggy biscuit masturbation girl. Ah well, I can't really complain, I do like both of those things. It was mostly Sheffield tweeting in, Ben got his asking if anyone wanted to help test his fertility tweet read out and so did Hannah. Shef is now probably the most notorious cancer unit in the whole of the country, what with our rude tweets (got told off for commenting offensive things about Leeds, we can't help it if they're inferior) and stage gatecrashing. Oops.

3. No one watched the live stream to see me online so I hate you all. Especially my boyfriend, I'll beat you up when I see you. LOVE.

4. Sheffield completely dominated the showcase dance off with our rendition of All that Jazz. So much so that we had to do an encore. Immediately after our first go. Which nearly killed half of us off. I have never seen a group of people turn more red! Luckily I wear make up about 5cm thick so I didn't look too horrendous. I probably did actually, I'm just in denial, in my head I always look like Pete Burns, in reality I look like a wheezy granny.

5. FREE STUFF. SO MUCH FREE STUFF. I now have enough nail varnish to last until 2043. And I now own a hoodie! A hoodie! The last time I wore a hoodie was when I was 13 and stuff a grungey sort of goth, I had an AFI one that I never took off. And a beautiful notebook and some special sellotape to stop me flashing

6. GREEK PARTY. My peplos was the most historically accurate in the room and I felt like a winner, but really everyone was a winner because everyone looked epic and the whole of Center Parcs were very confused as to why there were so many Greeks wandering around in the forest at 2AM on a Sunday. I don't even want to talk about how much my legs and back hurt by this point in the weekend. Authentic Greek pain!

7. I went swimming in my mankini! Well, it's not really a mankini but it's the nearest thing I've ever seen, it's a tasteful bright yellow swimsuit that plunges rather a lot lower than is generally acceptable (photos will appear soon). It turns out I am an even worse swimmer than I ever though possible and swimming pools are not really my friend. I did however sort of face my fear of drowning and dying by going down the rapids. I didn't even die once! The dinghy slide thing proved too much however, I decided Sunday was not the day I fancied dying so I ran away and hid, even though the Leeds paients saw me and now know that although Sheffield are all hard on the outside, underneath I'm actually chronically afraid of wet hair and drowning. I experienced a whole new emotion that day at the pool- fear. I've never really felt scared before, spiders, cancer, heights, they're all my friend but swimming pools are not. I'm fine with the sea, it just seems to be pools. Everyone drowns in pools. Pools eat people. WHOLE.

8. I ate my first Pot Noodle in ages. Chicken and mushroom. I enjoyed it.

9. I realised that I've become really old and un rock and roll. I managed to only consume three and a hald alcoholic beverages over the course of the whole weekend, 17 year old me would be disgusted! Forcing people to drink water, writing everyone's chalet numbers on their hands in case they got lost, when did I get so... Sensible? Saying that, I did just shout at a guilty looking bird who may or may not have just trashed my chimney. I need to accept that animals do not speak English. He just didn't look very remorseful.

So yeah, that's about it for now folks. When you donate to the Teenage Cancer Trust, this is what they really spend it on. Pot noodles, bra sellotape and trying to drown me. FUNTIMES :D

Anyway, I should be off now. I need to go and make more investigations as to which of these shifty looking birds broke my chimney and sent half of it flying to the ground.

Constancercancerstanzistanzicancerze :) xXx

P.s There will be more photos, including the one of me dressed as a Greek and one of me in my mankini as soon as blogger decides that uploading photos without ERROR ERROR ERROR TEN MILLIONS ERRORS appearing whenever I so much as think about adding a picture. Silly technology.