I'm doing Relay for Lifeee =D Hoorah! Can't wait it's going to be sooo much fun!

http://www.relay.cancercouncil.com.au/?2009/illawarra_2009/team_tam./166820

Our team is Team Tam and we're going to decorate our campsite with butterflies - lots of butterflies! That's also gonna be our dress up theme...many a fairy/butterfly wing being worn!

Soooo exciteeeddd =]

Dancing toniiiiiiiiight!!!

Steph's mum said I am a dance-a-holic.

Eh, it's true...whatevs lol.

PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEEEEEX!


glitter-graphics.com

YEAH THAT'S RIGHT IT'S SNEAKERNIGHT!!!!!

Holden, did you hear it? Did ya did ya?

(I know you did Jess :p)

I LOVE IT!!!!!!!

Ok, help me out here guys...

If I was wearing a dress that looked like this...




...Who would I be dressed up as?

(Sorry for crap cut out lol).

PLEEEEEASE as many of you reply as possible lol. I knwo for some it will be blatantly obvious, but even if it isn't, gimme a guess! If you don't know, tell me you don't know!

Comments will be screened so you can't copy off each other hehe!




PS - those of you who missed Saving Kids, it's on every Thursday at 8pm =D I know even more kids later on in the series. The only one I knew last week was Lewis - the baby with Leukaemia. He is such a sweetie. His family is awesome, I knew them before prac - they had a fundraiser for Lewis around the same time as we were in the media for Tamara's fashion parade. His uncle actually rang up and donated a bunch of prizes to us for the night =]

ALL MY FELLOW AUSSIEKINS WATCH SAVING KIDS TONIGHT 8PM CHANNEL TEN!!!! IT WAS BEING FILMED WHILE I WAS AT SYDNEY CHILDREN'S ON PRAC AND I WORKED WITH AND KNOW MOST OF THE KIDS! THEY ARE ALL SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!

P.S I CLEANED UP ONE OF THE PLAYROOMS SO DAMIEN COULD FILM IN THERE HAHAHA. IF YOU SEE A PLAYROOM WITH BLUE CELLOPHANE DONE LIKE AN OCEAN KINDA THING ON THE WINDOW BEHIND DAMIEN...THAT'S MY PLAYROOM =D IT WAS ON THE AD!!

P.P.S SORRY FOR CAPS, I'M EXCIIIITED HEHEH!

One word to describe me...just one single word. Leave it in my comments. Then post this message on your journal and see how many strange and interesting things people say about you...

Click to enlarge:



YEAH BABY!!!!!!!!!!

YAYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Final semester results are up, and I got 2 Distinctions with 83 and a High Distinction with 85!!!!!!!!!!

AIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!

I counted up all my final grades from the past three years and if my calculations are correct, I should be awarded my Bachelor with Distinction!!!!!!!!!!!

(You either graduate with a Bachelor or a Bachelor with Distinction)

*runs around the room screaming*

This year has been the hardest for me and I have gotten my best final grades ever - 3 D's and a HD mid year and now 2 D's and a HD (we only did three subs this semester, one was worth double credit points)!! Crazy!!

YAY ME HEHEHE!!!

I got my green P's =D

I finally got off my butt and did the test, because I realised my red's expired like next week lol.

Now I can legally speed when I'm driving to prac hehehehe!

CARLY!!

Did you read the very last page of TV Week?

So You Think You Can Dance is coming to Australia =D =D !!!!!!

ALEISHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!

Naaw she was so excited, I'm so happy for her =D =D

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN! ALEISHA2WIN!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

I just looked at the date and realised that four years ago today, Tamara was first diagnosed with cancer.

4 years ago today I was at dancing, and when I asked where Tamara was, I was met with the reply 'she's in hospital...they think she has cancer.'

4 years ago today the world crumbled.

4 years ago today I had no idea whether she'd live a month...a week...a day.

4 years on she's fighting the same fight again.

4 years on, she's still my inspiration.

It is 2pm and already today I have done 2 radio interviews (one over the phone, one live in the studio), been contacted by a local newspaper, taken 3 phone calls and 4 text messages of congratulations, had our fashion parade featured in the social pages of another local paper, been to uni, handed in an assignment I was up till 1am completing, come home, and am currently writing a 4000 worder due tomorrow.

I am supposed to be teaching dancing this afternoon...Laura and Elise are covering my classes...I am about to have a breakdown LOL! I am so so so unbelievably tired, I can't even begin to describe...but there will be no sleep for me until friday. Torture!

BUT...it was all worth it =D

The TIME of her life

She's 14. She has untreatable cancer.
So why is this girl still smiling?

The cover:



The double page spread:



The article:

The TIME of her life

Teenager Tamara Bianco has an aggressive cancer the doctors can’t treat, but she is determined to fill every day with joy, dancing, friends and family, as JODIE DUFFY discovers.


Four teenage girls were hanging out in a purple bedroom decorated with butterflies in an average suburban home in Horsley.

Two of the girls were at the computer, the others lying on a lilac bedspread.

Tamara Bianco was sitting in her friend Kylie Estreich’s room, downloading music from popular children’s TV shows.

Tamara was in a crazy mood, jumping up and singing the Postman Pat theme song, loudly and out of key.

Her friends joined in and danced into the loungeroom, swinging their arms and thrashing their bodies wildly. A few minutes later they collapsed into a giggling heap. They were happy and life was good.

But six weeks later, Tamara’s cancer was back and their carefree days were over.

Sitting in a private room off Wollongong Hospital’s emergency department in October last year, a doctor told Tamara, 14, that conventional medicine could do nothing to save her young life.

What they had thought was an appendicitis attack was in fact a massive tumour.

Oncologists couldn’t tell Tamara how much time she has left to live – it could be months, it could be years.

Anger, disbelief and incredible sadness followed but Tamara rose to the challenge, telling everyone life would go on as usual.

And because she’s not in pain and looks well most days, her friends couldn’t tell she was sick and for a while they believed her.

They spent endless summer days shopping for clothes, going to movies and talking – long conversations about nothing much more than fashion, music and boys.

But there were also the trips to Sydney for tests and visits to a Chinese natural therapist – the man Tamar believes is going to save her with his herbal tablets, acupuncture and strict vegan diet.

“I was 10 when I first got cancer and I knew I could die, but my mind was set on living,” she said. “I’ve beaten this once and I know I can do it again.”

But this time around there will be no chemotherapy, radiation therapy or bone marrow transplant.

The treatment doctors used to obliterate the cancer the first time can’t be used on the same person twice.

Instead, Tamara’s relying on her natural therapist and the power of her mind.

“I’ve taught myself to think positively about everything. You just have to tell your mind that you’re going to beat it,” she said. “Most of all you tell yourself not to feel sorry for yourself because if you do you know you’re going to die.”

Tamara has Neuroblastoma, an aggressive early childhood cancer which attacks the nervous system.

To be diagnosed as she was at 10 is rare and, sadly, the rate of relapse is among the highest of all cancers.

The only sign that Tamara was sick the first time were the enlarged lymph nodes on her neck and that was despite having a tumour the size of a grapefruit in her stomach.

Without the love and care of her friends, Tamara said she would struggle to stay focused on living.

Kylie has always had a strong connection with Tamara in spite of being four years older (Kylie note: I’m actually 5 and a half years older…). “I treat Tamara more like my age, but she’s more than a friend, she’s like a sister to me,” Kylie said. “She’s just such a cheeky sweetheart and an old soul. Sometimes I act younger than she does.”

The week before they discovered the cancer was back, Kylie had a dream that Tamara was sick again.

“I had this horrible feeling that something wasn’t right and I cried for three days,” Kylie said. “I don’t know why and I don’t know how I knew, but it was a big shock. I told my mum and she said that everything would be fine.”

“But when we found out it was true, I was devastated. I just couldn’t grasp that there was nothing doctors could do for her. I couldn’t believe it.

“That’s when I thought if medicine can’t do something, we’ll have to help out.”

Kylie and another friend Ashleigh Garzotto are organising a fashion parade and family fundraising night on May 26 for Tamara and her family. (See breakout).

At a time when she should be dealing with growing pains and teenage crushes, Tamara is forced to face her mortality way too early.

She’s never been kissed, never had a boyfriend and she’s had to give up the one thing in her life she loves most – dance school – to concentrate on her health.

But the normality of her life, the bravado that nothing is wrong, is keeping her sane and casting away any gloomy thoughts.

Instead she can fill her mind with school work, fashion, friends and participating in the Rock Eisteddfod.

At home she still bosses around her little sister Olivia, 13, and they fight like most siblings, mainly about the messy room they share together.

While Tamar tries not to dwell on what might happen, Olivia has thought about what life will be like without her sister.

The pair have slept side-by-side for most of their lives and even one night without Tamara seems bleak to Olivia.

“She’s always been in the room with me and I’ve always been too scared to sleep without someone near mean the thought of her not being there makes me very sad and very scared.” Olivia said. “We might fight a lot and she can sometimes be mean to me but she’s always really good when I need to talk to someone. She always tells me everything will be alright.

“And when I imagine sometimes that she’s gone, it makes me feel really alone.”

Tamara tires hard not to think about her future and whenever she feels her life slipping away she clings to the power of positive thinking.

“When I’m at school I just forget about he cancer and so if I don’t think about it, the better it will be for me in the long term,” she said. “Anyway, I know I’m going to live to be 80, but if I don’t, I want to at least live until the year 10 formal.”

But she admits there are times when she wishes her friends and family would talk to her more about how they’re coping and there have been moments when she has longed to share much more with them.

“I feel like someone’s put me out to sea and I’ve just got to swim back in,” she said.

“I wonder why me, but I know I just have to deal with it. I know I’m going to make it, I know I’m going to stay on earth and I’m not going to leave. I’m going to live my full life.

“I don’t think I’m going to die because I want to be herem I don’t want to miss out on very much, I want to live to have a family of my own.

“I will miss going shopping with my friends too much, going to the movies and having sleepovers and parties.”

Tamara hadn’t told a soul, but if she does die, she wants her body to be cremated so she can always be with her family, safe at home.

“I’m not scared of dying because I know I’ll still be here with everybody, guiding them through their troubles. I’ll be there, looking down on them, looking after them.”

For now, though, her close friends and family are just trying to make sure they make the most of each and every moment they have left with Tamara.

“It’s just been a big kick in the stomach. We don’t know how long she’s going to be like this for; how long she’s going to be around,” Kylie said.

“I’m just trying to put it all out of my head and create as many good memories as we can. We’re going to muck around and just be kids for a while.”

Six weeks after the second diagnosis, Tamara and her friends were back in Kylie’s living room.

This time they cracked open the karaoke machine and belted out songs from The Veronica’s, Tamara’s favourite band.

Kylie’s father was ready with the video camera to capture the moment as they sang with great drama, the song 4Ever.

The girls were hopelessly off-key, but they couldn’t care less. You could see on their faces they were having the time of their young lives.

Come on baby we ain’t gonna live forever
Let me show you all the things that we could do
You know you wanna be together
And I wanna spend the night with you, yeah yeah
With you, yeah, yeah.

The smaller article (break out):

Let’s get trendy for Tamara day

Gutted by the harsh reality that doctors can do nothing to save Tamara, her close friends have decided to take control and raise money to help pay the costs of her natural therapies, medical bills and expensive dietary requirements.

Tamara also wants to swim with the dolphins in Queensland and her family is considering installing a swimming pool in their backyard for hydro-therapy purposes.

But instead of a lamington or chocolate drive they’ve decided the best way to fundraise is to devote the event to one of Tamara’s passions – fashion.

Kylie Estreich and Ashleigh Garzotto are organising a fashion parade and family fun night at St Joseph’s Catholic High School on may 26 at 7pm.

“Tamara’s parents can spend up to $600 a week on medicines and organic foods,” says Ashleigh. “But what we really want to do is to just present the money we raise to her and let her decide what she wants to do with it.”

The girls have also organised a silent auction, with prizes including accommodation and an authentic, signed photograph of the Balmain Legends worth $1500.

The $10 entry tickets can be bought at the door or they can be pre-purchased at Garvie-Sanderson’s Dance Studio at Albion Park, where Tamara has been a dance student since the age of seven.

“It’s been such an emotion time for all of us,” says Kylie. “We just want to help the family in any way we can, and we just want to create as many fun memories as possible.

“We don’t know how long she’s going to be with us for.

“She’s been such an inspiration to all of us, she’s been so brave and strong for all of us, we just really wanted to do something for her.”

Pictures - CLICK TO ENLARGE:


CAPTION: After sharing a bedroom for most of their lives, sister Olivia, 13, (left) will miss Tamara's physical presence the most. Olivia says she's scared at the thought that Tamara might die and leave her alone.


CAPTION: LEFT: Tamara is participating for the first time in the Rock Eisteddfod with St Joseph's High School.
RIGHT: Tamara, centre, at home with her sister Olivia and brother Adrian.


CAPTION: Friends Ashleigh Garzotto and Kylie Estreich are determined to create many happy memories for Tamara Bianco while she's still active.


The main picture (not the best quality, I had to take a pic with the camera coz it was too big to scan!)

Ooooh, I can't handle this celebrity LIFE hahaha!!

Tamara, Ashleigh and myself were featured as front cover news in a huge double page spread in the Mercury Weekender on Saturday. Once again, despite the fact my number was not mentioned this time, I have had a zillion calls with people enguiring about the fashion parade.

Today I got a call from Carmel, one of the hosts from 106.9 Vox fm who wants the three of us in the studio tomorrow morning to co-host the second hour of the morning program LIVE ON AIR!!! Her and the other guy host (I forget his name lol) are going to talk to us about what we are doing and tamara's story, and yeah - just have us on air with them for the hour!

I am soooo excited!!!

I just can't believe how many opportunities this has brought about for us, getting noticed, getting tamara's story out there, and raising awareness of neuroblastoma and other childhood cancers.

To date, we have been featured in:

- FIVE newspaper articles
- A Tv show
- A set of TV community news announcements
- Radio community news announcements
- School newsletters across the region
- Countless shop windows
- Now we are broadcasting LIVE ON AIR!!!

Hooooow exciting!

I will type up the awesome article from Saturday probably Wednesday night or Thursday, when Uni has died down a little, I am so crazily busy right now! I had 2 assignments due last week, two the week before, 2 today, one Wednesday, then a week of nothing (except its the week leading up to the fashion parade so HECTIC!) and then the following week I have 4 due then 7 WEEKS OF HOLIDAY! BLISS!

Can't wait.

Anyway just thought I'd fill you in on my exciting news!! I'll let you know how it goes =D

I seem to have picked myself up a stalker.

Oh dear.

It's not my fault I look so gosh darn attractive in my work uniform!*

Now I know how fish boy feels every time I walk past his work.

Hehe.

Oh oh I also got a haircut and colour on wednesday. I'll have to take a pic - it's all layery around my face and it has heaps of different length layers through it, but its still longish underneath. The colour is a fair bit lighter than before too. Ooooh!












*For anyone who hasn't seen my work uniform...that comment was dripping with sarcasm-sauce.

Reply to this post, and I will:

1 - Tell you why I friended you.
2 - Associate you with a song/film.
3 - Tell a random fact about you.
4 - Tell a first memory about you.
5 - Associate you with a character/pairing.
6 - Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7 - Tell you my favorite user pic of yours [if it pertains].
8 - In retort, you must spread this disease in your LJ [or blog].

What does your drawing say about YOU?



Best picture EVER! *shifty eyes*

However, the analysis is reasonably accurate! *impressed*




ETA - I somehow misplaced the analysis along the way hahahaha....but it was very me!

1 hour, 4 minutes left of being a teenager!

Aaaaahhhhh!!!