My name is Johanna Roach and I am 11 years old. Last year I was diagnosed with cancer. At first I was frightened of all the things the doctors might have to do to me, and operations I thought I might have to have, because I had never been to hospital before, let alone have an operation.

The week after I was diagnosed we went to Camperdown Children's Hospital every day for tests and I had my Central Line put in, which is a tube going into the top of my chest where all the medication goes through.

I met the people who were going to be my doctors. Then, they just seemed ordinary doctors, but now they are more like my friends.

I then had three big lots of chemotherapy over a period of three months, which I didn't like at all because it gave me very, very sore mouth ulcers, fevers, made me sick and I lost all my hair. At first I was worried about what I was going to do about my hairless head when I went back to school, but the social worker for Oncology (cancer and leukemia kids) knew that I'd probably worry about that so she suggested we buy a wig and we decided we would.

I first felt a little embarrassed about wearing it, but I soon got used to it and now it just feels like real hair, but my family and I still joke about me having no hair (I don't mind).

After the chemotherapy I was to have a big operation at Westmead Hospital to remove my tumour. I thought I would be nervous the night before the operation but surprisingly I wasn't. In fact, I was at school the day before the operation.

The operation went on for 16 hours, from 8am to midnight. It was a long, long day for mum and dad but a short one for me. The next day when they took the catheter out, dad was amused when I started singing "I feel better", the song from the Medicare ad.

I recovered very quickly and in two weeks I was back at school. During the time I was in hospital, six nurses from Camperdown, in their own time came to see me at Westmead and one of my doctors, Dr John came three times while on his holidays, which I thought was very thoughtful of him. I have an autograph book where the nurses and doctors wrote cheeky and funny messages. Those nurses were special to me because I had got to know them so well.

I was left with three scars from the operation and I was also very, very swollen on the right side of my face where they had cut. It was so swollen that I couldn't open my eye!

Not long after I had the big operation, it was time for me to have a Bone-Marrow Harvest (another operation!). In this, the surgeons take out my bone-marrow and store it, because in three months I would have to have more chemotherapy that would knock it around.

The next lot of chemotherapy was given by three Lumber Punches, one a week for three weeks. Before I had the punches I was very scared about having them, because I'd heard other kids screaming in the treatment room when they were having them. My best friend at school told me her cousin had had one and it had hurt like nothing else, but to tell the truth, it wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be, partly because a doctor called Bart gave me laughing gas and told me jokes.

One day while I was sitting up in the Oncology Clinic having one day chemotherapy, Dr John came in and told me there was someone on the phone for me. It was my dad. He had called to let me know that I had been voted School Captain at my school. For I am in Year 6 and we had voted two days before at school. I was really, really excited.

Another time when mum and I were coming out of the Clinic the car was gone because mum forgot she had left it in a tow-away zone. She had to walk all around the streets trying to find it.

The next treatment was radiation at Prince Alfred Hospital. I went after school every day for six weeks. The doctor there said that I wouldn't be able to go to school for all of the six weeks because I'd get too tired. I didn't miss one single day of school. I just didn't get tired at all.

After radiation I had a Bone-Marrow Transplant. The last bit of treatment I needed. This was to put my bone-marrow back that they had stored from the Harvest. I was going to be in hospital for about a month, so I would be in for all of Easter. All these people I didn't know and dressed up Bears and Rabbits were coming in and giving all the children in the hospital Easter eggs and lollies.

For my transplant I had to be in an isolation room, and had plastic sheets put up around my bed but dad cut a hole in it so that I could watch the T.V. I was put in the room because of the risk of infection.

It's very, very hard to explain how bored it can get in the same room for a month doing nothing except watching T.V. and there's a limit to how much T.V. you can watch. I was too tired and sick to do anything else.

Well I finally got to go home, only for a day at first, then soon I was at home for good.

This week, on Sunday the 21st June, will be a year since I was diagnosed. I'm still visiting the Clinic for check-ups regularly and I'm glad everything is behind me now.

I've had a lot of help along the way though, from my family and friends, like when I was in hospital, all of Year 6 wrote letters to me once a week and people have been praying for me all the time, which has helped me the whole way. So there's been some good and bad things out of this, and soon I hope to grow my hair back and have my Central Line taken out!

I wonder what it will be like to have hair again…?

Johanna Roach (12) Yr 6, O.L.O.R.

From a person's earliest days they are moulded and shaped; sometimes subtly, other times more directly. Each person's personality is unique and different but is influenced by two main factors - family and environment. One shaping environment is school.

My first day in high school was filled with excitement and nervousness. However, I was extremely shy and it was hard to find a friend in my class, unlike others who had found other girls with similar interests. It was during year seven that I kept in close contact with several other girls from my primary school.

My primary school was close to Kogarah and also had O.C. (Opportunity Classes), which contained some of the brightest girls in the area. Many of these O.C. girls inevitably made it to this school. I, being a non O.C., did not know any of the O.C. people and so I hung around with the minority non O.C. Hurstville Public students.

Well into term two I experienced the second friendship problem. Number one was finding a friend, number two was 'getting rid' of a person whom the group did not like. She wasn't bitchy or mean or anything like that but she seemed to get on everyone's nerves and it was a little more than a 'bit'.

While on excursion to the Australian Museum everyone had come to the solution that someone should tell the poor girl that she had better find other friends. No one volunteered to tell her though. Finally, knowing that no one else (not even the person who suggested it) would do the dirty deed I volunteered. I took her away from the group and asked her, "Don't you feel just a little left out in our group?" She replied, "A little but I don't mind."

We talked some more about how she might fit better with friends who had similar interests and who would like and accept her better. I felt terrible but she only smiled and nodded and went to find some new and, hopefully, nicer friends. Fortunately she was no shy girl and by the end of the day she had found some new friends. I needed to follow that advice, myself, but I couldn't. From this moment on I began to worry, knowing that I had little in common with the group I was with. I also knew that they could easily throw me out just like the girl I helped throw out and I couldn't make friends as easily as her either.

By year eight I had left that group and joined another but I still didn't feel comfortable. I always had the distinct feeling that everyone tried to avoid me. I wasn't ready to be thrown out so I put up with the unpleasant feeling. I wondered constantly about what I could be doing wrong socially and why they didn't seem to like me. The situation became so bad that schoolwork and books, classes and holidays were better than spending time with my 'friends' at recess and lunch.

After a while I began to collect Sweet Valley High books, which most people liked to read. People were nice to me all of a sudden but it wasn't because of my personality - they had already rejected that - it was because I had the latest books in the series and everyone wanted to borrow and read them. It felt so weird.

In year eight I also met a girl who taught me how to be more wary of people. I was very gullible. Joanne seemed to be my friend and she promised me that she could get all the books that I was collecting in the Sweet Valley High series. She told me that in America the books were up to numbers a hundred or more, which was probably true as Sweet valley High is an American series.

When I asked her what some of the storylines were they sounded false. Joanne was vague about everything. Everything except the amount of money I would have to pay her for all those Sweet valley High books. I paid her.

Joanne also promised other things: Sweet Valley High banners, bookshelves, posters. These extras, of course, cost more and I paid more and more. I waited weekend after weekend for the books' arrival and they never did come. I began to demand all my money back. I suspected that Joanne had lied to me. Who knows what she did with my money?

I never kept track of the money I spent. I learnt from this to always keep track of the money I lend or spend. Whenever I paid her she would say, "You've paid $20", sometimes a little more, but when she finally paid me back she claimed that I had, in all those months, paid a grand total of only $9.46. What could I say? I was stupid. I had no proof that I'd paid her at all. I was lucky to get even $9.46. I had learnt this lesson the hard way. I hated Joanne and vowed never to speak to her again, let alone trust her!

This did not help me to trust people. I had become Joanne's friend, trusted her and what did I gain? Needless to say, this experience didn't help me to make friends any easier.

Why couldn't I find some real friends - like everyone else? My aunt, who was staying with my family at the time, suggested that maybe I was expecting too much. I certainly didn't think that finding an honest, kind person with similar interests was asking too much. I couldn't understand why I couldn't make friends. This was probably the lowest point in my life. I felt so alone.

If that point in my life was the lowest then things could only get better and, gradually, they did. In year eight they mixed the classes away from alphabetical order so I had to meet the rest of my grade, whether I liked it or not. My history class, which was also every other class I was in, contained three important people: Tammy, Tamara and Hope.

My main problem was that I was too shy to make conversation. I say boring things which interest no one - I still do. Tammy, Tamara and Hope were not shy at all and were extremely friendly. I came to really like group work and class participation because then I could sit with them, listen to their conversation and be part of a group. I was still lonely at recess and lunch because I was too shy to ask if I could sit with them at recess and lunch.

By the end of year eight I was friendly with all three and spent my recesses and lunches with Tammy. Sometimes Hopey (as I call Hope) would come over with her other friends to where we sat. In the very few last weeks of school our two groups merged into one.

In the beginning of the merger I was shy and stuck close to Tammy and Hopey but by the end of term one, year nine I knew most of the people's names at least. I was scared of most of them and not sure if they liked me or not. I mainly kept out of things.

But whether they meant to or not, they were helping me to discover myself. Hopey's group consisted of a lot of people and most of these people are quite different but joined together in some way. So I had a whole range of music and other things to consider and find out what was right for me. I discovered that I loved Roxette and could admit it without embarrassment. I found the true me - all with everyone's help, direct or indirect.

By the end of year nine I knew who I was, knew most of the people in the group I sat with, gained a little more confidence and had fun. The best thing was going to the Entertainment Centre to see Roxette with FRIENDS.

It was through this concert that I really got to know Christina - one of my best friends. Before this I didn't know her and she had come from the same primary school but from O.C.! I discovered we had Roxette in common as well as Sweden, tennis and music. Our other friends joke that they are ALL we talk about.

From my first few years in high school I met many people: nice people whom I had nothing in common with, deceitful people, true friends and throughout all the hardships I learnt many a lesson and finally found what I had wanted so badly - Bestfriends.

Fona Lee (15)St George Girls' High

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This page updated: 23 January 2006 Webmaker: Howard Smith. hsmith4@une.edu.au