I always wore a mask because I was so embarrassed of my face

My nose started feeling quite blocked, and I couldn’t breathe properly through it. I also started getting a lot of nosebleeds too.

A doctor told me to go to A&E and they referred me to the Ear Nose and Throat clinic. By then I had a growth in my nose that was quite big. They took a sample, and the results showed that it was cancerous, and I had alveolar sarcoma.

My mum was with me when the results came back, and we were both quite scared. We just didn’t expect it to be cancer.

The growth got quite aggressive after the biopsy, and it got to the point that it was so big that my right eye was swollen and had lumps in it. My right cheek was swollen too. I started getting double vision and I couldn’t see out of my right eye.

I was referred to the Teenage Cancer Trust unit at The Freeman Hospital in Newcastle to have my Hickman line put in and to have my chemo. The unit was not what I expected. I’d been in adult wards and the experience was not the same. I felt more comfortable at the Teenage Cancer Trust unit, and it felt better to be there.

I was lucky that my mum was able to be with me all of the time while I was on the Teenage Cancer Trust unit. There was a bed in my room which allowed her to stay overnight with me. I was so grateful for that as I needed her the most then.

When I started my chemo, I kept catching infections and I didn’t leave the hospital for more than half an hour in the first six weeks. It was really tough. But Teenage Cancer Trust’s Clinical Nurse Specialist Danielle was really there for me. She visited me all of the time and sat and talked to me. It was great to see a friendly face. She really helped me with my anxiety too.

I had lots of side-effects. With the radiotherapy my skin went really dark around my nose and mouth. Sometimes it gets really dry and I have to moisturise four times a day, otherwise it can start bleeding. I thought people would notice the skin discolouration, so I always covered it up with my face mask. I guess that was one saving grace of covid, everyone was wearing face masks, but I kept mine up everywhere. Even at home I’d lift up my sweater to cover my face. I even hid it from my mum for a while because I was so self-conscious.

I lost a lot of weight because I found it difficult to swallow. I had to have a PEG line inserted into my stomach for food. I was intolerant to the solution they were giving me and it meant I became really weak for a while. There was one time when I collapsed in the ward because my blood sugar levels were so low. That was a really scary moment.

I became really good friends with a lad called Jordan. He was on the unit a lot of the time when I was, and it was always great to see him. There were days when I was lying in bed feeling awful, but then I’d hear his voice in the social area and it would encourage me to get up so I could go and join him. We played a lot of pool and card games, and we’d chat. Sometimes we just want to talk about normal things rather than the diagnosis and how we feel.

You can struggle to sleep during treatment and Jordan and I would both find ourselves wide awake in the middle of the night. We started walking around and tried to scare the nurses. We would have a laugh about it the next day, and it was nice being able to have a joke while on the unit. We speak when we are out of the hospital and check in on each other.

So far I’ve had six cycles of chemo and a lot of radiotherapy. Unfortunately, in the last month I’ve developed this little lump on my neck that means I need to go in for another round of treatment.

It’s been difficult for my mental health, trying to get back to a normal life, but Danielle helps me a lot and I have a counsellor who sits with me and we just talk everything out. Hopefully I can go back to college in September but now I’m just concentrating on trying to get better.