Saturday - my 19th birthday :D

I had a lovely birthday :D :D :D

I had a lie-in until about 9am in the morning and then got up and pottered about before sitting down with my parents to open my cards and presents.

These are the cards I received:
Note the card in the middle that looks hand made. My friend Claire drew that for me and it's a picture of what she imagined would be on my bookshelves :D I also received lots of birthday texts, emails, forum messages, Facebook messages and phone calls. My nan and auntie phoned in the morning to wish me happy birthday and I rang my uncle as he has the same birthday as me. Later in the day I recieved a phone call from my friend Lizzy and her daughter M and that was lovely as they both sang happy birthday down the phone to me :)

I received some lovely presents from my family and friends :D My parents bought me 4 DVDs (Toy Story, Toy Story 2, The Feeling: Come Home and Mika live at Parc des Princes Paris) as well as giving me an IOU for the Vicar of Dibley Ultimate Collection on DVD which is on its way from Amazon. I can't wait to watch all my new DVDs :D Mum and dad also got me a little gadget called Hide ID, which stamps a random lot of letters, numbers and symbols over personal details on documents, which means you don't need to shred them. Very clever. And dad bought me a lovely bunch of flowers and mum knitted me a very cute hedgehog:
From other family members I received £15 from my nan (which I'll use to buy Mika's second album) and a fantastic pair of earrings from Alf, which I've worn constantly since I unwrapped them:
I received some more jewellery too, including this beautiful pendant from my cousin:
And this bracelet from my friend and neighbour, S, who I saw for the first time in ages last Tuesday:
I received a £10 Amazon voucher from E (a friend from sixth form) and a £10 Borders voucher from H (the friend who I saw on Thursday). I don't know what I'm going to spend them on yet - probably more DVDs - but I'm looking forward to browsing. My closest friend from sixth form, Catherine, bought me this lovely photo frame with a photo of us together in Japan in it, which I know I'll always treasure:

After opening all my presents I sent lots of thank you texts and waited for Claire. She got a bit held up though attempting to make me a cheesecake as I don't like 'normal' birthday cakes, lol. So I watched some TV (a programme on C4 about Pixie Lott's debut album), checked my emails and pottered around until Claire arrived.

When Claire arrived I opened my presents from her. She bought me some yummy shortbread, a nail file, 4 nail varnishes in colours I love and a fantastic digital photo frame. I've been fiddling with the digital photo frame this afternoon and I love it! It's currently set to a slideshow of some of my Florida photos :D Then we played my favourite cardgame (Ligretto) for a bit and had some lunch before going to visit my nan. We spent about an hour at my nan's house and it was lovely to see her and for her and Claire to meet each other for the first time.

When we got back home we watched a very funny DVD called Along Came Polly and then dad did a very yummy BBQ :D And for pudding we had Claire's cheese cake which was delicious!

Me with my birthday cake:

Me and Alf:

Me and Claire:
After tea we watched another very funny film called Over the Hedge and played some more Ligretto :) I didn't manage fit any rests in yesterday though, so felt quite unwell towards the end of the day - I was exhausted, had a headache and tummyache and felt nauseus :( My Melatonin (the tablet to help me sleep) had arrived in the post yesterday morning, so I tried that out last night. I fell asleep quite quickly but woke a few times during the night, so I'll keep trying with that and see how my sleep goes. I also had my weekly night off feeds last night :)

Just before I went to bed last night I emailed my donor's sister. I email her every so often to keep her and her parents updated with my progress, as she says knowing how well I'm doing really helps them. I also email every Christmas and transplant anniversary to let them know that they're in my thoughts. I felt it was important to email last night because I'd had a fantastic birthday, but am very aware that if I hadn't recieved my transplant almost 3 years ago, then I wouldn't have been celebrating turning 19 yesterday. Yesterday I also took the opportunity to post a message on Facebook urging people to sign up to the organ donor register to enable other people to have a second chance, just like I have. My friend Claire is a teacher and she teaches 11 to 16 year olds who can't attend school for behavoural or medical reasons. She was my tutor before my transplant when I couldn't attend school, but now we're just great friends. Yesterday when we were chatting she asked me if I'd be able to speak to a group of 12 GCSE students about organ donation in one of their PSHE sessions this year. I'm hoping to do it to help raise awareness of organ donations, but although I've been confident giving talks to health professionals and adults in the past, the idea of speaking to teenagers is a bit scary!