We didn’t go to the ball. It got to an hour before we had to go and I felt worse than ever, so we cancelled. I feel guilty as someone else could have had my tickets and they wouldn’t have been wasted.

Wednesday March 16

I feel fine today after taking the new antibiotics. I need to get better before I go on holiday in five weeks’ time. When Mum phoned about insurance for the holiday she discovered that to insure her and Lee would cost pound;20 each, but for me it would be pound;300.

Thursday March 17

Nicola and Rachel came after school. I am trying to arrange to go out with the girls in the holidays to get my confidence back. I normally stay in and hibernate. I feel the odd one out when I go out with my friends, and so I have only been out with them a couple of times since being like this. I am thinking of going shopping somewhere far away from where we live so we are less likely to meet anyone I know.

Monday April 4

We got another appointment through today from Guy’s hospital about my foot.

It is for April 29, which is a big difference from July 1. Things seem to be looking up. I am feeling much better in myself. I think I was just having a down moment last month. I needed to cry and let it all out. I just get down when I am feeling ill.

Tuesday April 5

Mum phoned the community nurses this morning about a letter that Dr Martin had to write to say I was fit enough to fly when we go on holiday. Heidi said it was posted last week, so we should have received it. It turns out the hospital has been sending our letters to the old address, so we weren’t aware that we had to go to see Dr Martin this afternoon. I said I wasn’t going. I am fed up going to doctors and being poked and pulled. In the end I had to go, but I made sure I moaned and had to be bribed with a strawberry Cornetto and a Time Out bar. I refused to be weighed, though, which made the girl who was in the waiting room with me refuse too. Dr Martin just wanted to talk about the scan results, which were fine. Shadows can still be seen on the scan, but that is where I have had tumours and the surgery. It has stayed the same size for the past four scans. When we got to the shop they didn’t have any strawberry Cornettos. I was in a bad mood until I ate my Time Out.

Thursday April 7

Nikki left today. I wasn’t expecting it. She said it was because I no longer needed palliative care. I didn’t know what this meant until Nikki explained it. She tried to explain it nicely by saying it meant caring for the dying. When I was in hospital in February 2003 I had a sign at the end of my bed saying “palliative care”. Mum didn’t like that sign. So that’s it, no more Nikki. I will have to train Mum to do my nails.

Nicole Dryburgh, 16, attends St Nicholas’ special school in Canterbury, Kent, part-time. This week she and three other teenagers won a Philip Lawrence outstanding achievement award for the room they have designed for the Demelza House children’s hospice near Sittingbourne