I don’t do this often, but I must retract my previous comment about Pete Stephenson, the Big Brother 7 housemate that has Tourette’s. The launch night of Big Brother is a very huge event, having to walk out into a crowd of hundreds, probably millions more watching you on TV is a very brave thing to do. You have to build up an immediate persona and say “This is me, these are my qualities, please vote for me to win”. In every person this takes a lot of andrenaline and the reaction of a crowd can be very nerve-wrecking. As I’ve watched the show, live and edited these past 3 days, my views on Pete have changed. I branded him a “fake attention seeker” far too quickly, and now see him as a very brave, true and honest man. Someone who is trying to overcome their disability to live a normal life. If he does not find the strain of Big Brother too hard I will be voting for him to win in the final week. Go Pete!!!

Sorry for not posting sooner, but now I’m back at home everything’s a bit normal. It’s my birthday in a couple of days, that should be semi-interesting I guess. The Eurovision Song Contest is on Saturday this week, the semi-finals were on tonight along with the launch of Big Brother VII, but more about that later. First off, I’m glad to see Finalnd made it through, who would of thought such a kick-ass song could come from Finland? Not I! It’s a shame Greece don’t have a sense of humour as Iceland was entertaining, but aren’t they always. Please stop getting your hopes up UK. We will not win, we will be lucky to even reach the Top 10! Thank god for the remote control, once Finland performed I flicked in between this and Big Brother.

Ah Big Brother, or as I like to refer to it, The Human Microwave. You pop in a person and 3 minutes later you get something that passes for a celebrity. So who’ve we got in the house this year? BONNIE, 20, CARE WORKER: Is her accent even British? I think they deserved to be booed going in, just to show them they’re not a zelebrity yet! PETE, 24, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL SINGER: He is just an attention seeking faker… So, this years winner?! (first impressions, please read above) GEORGE, 19, STUDENT: Hello to this years Stuart, if he does not find his Michelle then he will be out of there quicker than a hobnob in a cuppa. SHABAZ, 37, UNEMPLOYED: I think he has a hard shell. Definitely the least annoying so far, and that’s saying something. LEA, 35, MODEL: I wonder how long before she breaks down crying… Apparently 6 seconds. Eww, Shabaz has gone down in my expectations. If he clings onto Lea anymore her boobs will pop out. MIKEY, 23, SOFTWARE DEVELOPER: A lads lad. I have no kind words, I’m too busy watching Iceland, now she has a personality worth writing about. DAWN, 38, EXERCISE SCIENTIST: A pessimist… Is it an act, is she a suicidal outcast? No… She’s just a wannabe in sheeps clothing. GLYN, 18, LIFEGUARD: I literally had to cover my mouth to stop from throwing up. Welsh? What region of Welsh produces that kind of accent? RICHARD, 33, WAITER: Channel 4…? I thought I accidentally stumbled onto Adult TV there for a second, and that’s not a good thing. GRACE, 20, DANCE TEACHER: Her clothes are real, unfortunately so is her personality. But with this lot it’s actually a breath of fresh air. Hello to my new least annoying housemate, whilst Shabaz is now the most annoying housemate EVER! SESER, 26, ENTREPRENEUR: Everything was going so well until he got nude. I want to gouge my eyes out. NIKKI, 24, MODEL: Attention, we have our bunny boiler. As if we didn’t need more proof she is dressed up as a bunny. You’d better watch out George! Oh and as for IMOGEN and LISA, I have no witty words for them. They appear about as normal as normal can be in the Big Brother house.

And those are our 14… About the exact age and/or IQ you need to enjoy this drivel. Ah, at least there’s always the possibility of Dawn hanging her herself or Pete spontaneously combusting. Thank god for channel surfing, no doubt I’ll form a more well-rounded opinion sooner or later.

So, I was in hospital again if you didn’t already know! I had an infection where my hickman line is, but not in my line thank god. So I had some antibiotics and after a week I was free to go back home. I’m still on my number one choice of drug, Flucloxacillin, for about another 7 days. I mean, the infection is all cleared up, but I NEED to make sure it really is so I’m taking it for another week.

Whilst I was in there I wrote a personal diary entry which I’m going to share as it was pretty good, I hope.

Irony is an aspect of my life I can never quite seem to escape. I’m a lover of sarcasm, treating it like sugar in my tea and equally attracted to those around me who use it. So, that’s ironic when events in my life work out to be just a big sarcastic joke on me. I had rejoiced on my website when it became apparent that it had been over a year since I was last admitted into hospital. It wasn’t down to hard work and a healthy lifestyle, at least I dont think. Sure I’m on a sporadic dose of vitamins and a knuckle-crackingly good physio regime, but it was just luck that I happened to go exactly 54 weeks without an overnight stay on the ward.

Now the counter is reset, I’m here in the corner of a four-bed room receiving treatment for a relatively life-threatening infection. Sure it sounds drastic but technically all infections are life-threatening if untreated, just in my case this is more so given my poor immune system.

It’s been 72 hours since becoming an inpatient and I’m cautiously optimistic of my recovery. I think that whatever the outcome I will at least be more able to come to terms with the diagnosis than I was 3 days ago.

3 days ago I did sob when it emerged I may have to have my third hickman line removed, but I didn’t cry, nor did I accept the pity of my family and friends. I wanted to be a responsible adult in handling the situation. Hell, I’d have been embarrassed if I hadn’t have handled the news well, there’s something stupidly satisfying about being five weeks away from turning twenty, and all of the recent activities have only served as justification to this theory of mine.

Before, I didn’t think twenty was going to be any different to nineteen. Despite fearing it and constantly being reminded about it, twenty just seemed to me to be another year to spend umming and erring about my future. But after succumbing to an infection and being told the decision of what to do was up to me (which is a first in itself, making it apparent that it has been far more than a year since I have had an illness which had the liberty of requiring a
decision to decide what to do next) I now have realised, all too irritatingly, that twenty is different to nineteen, but only because I can make it different.

Being twenty opens up lots of different doors, all of which I can walk through at my leisure. I dont have to make choices to please others and I dont have to fear messing up if the choices I make are not right. Of course I will, and writing this down makes no difference whatsoever, but it’s just the realisation of this that is calming, something which I didnt have before.

So that’s why I consider it ironic that of all the places to have a ‘stupidly satisfying’ realisation, it ends up being next to a drip-stand in a hospital bed on a ward. That something ultimately life-threatening can turn out to be life-changing. Realising that is scary, but realising that I have the opportunity to control it fills me with a giddy sense of power. Of course this could all be a wonderful, drug-induced rant, in which case nothing has changed and the following has just been an excuse to exercise my expanding vocabulary, mwhahahahaha!

Maybe a little bit overly dramatic but I guess that’s how I really felt in there. The Gallery has had a few new photos added to it from my trip to London.