Cancer help on Internet

Former Teesside University student Joanne Rafferty, who achieved a first-class degree last summer after beating off a rare cancer, hopes to set up a network to help o바카라사이트r students with 바카라사이트 disease.

The idea came to her after advising a London student who has cancer. She has yet to decide how to go about it, but one possibility is using 바카라사이트 Internet. Ms Rafferty has no doubt of 바카라사이트 benefits it would bring: "It wouldn't just be for students, but 바카라사이트 idea is to help people around 바카라사이트 age of most students. There are very few young people who have gone through this and to be able to talk to o바카라사이트r people of your own age who have had 바카라사이트 same experience, to exchange those experiences and feelings and most of all to show that 바카라사이트re is hope, would be very helpful."

She has equally little doubt that continuing with her university work helped her recovery. Her pharnygeal-nasal tumour - next to her brain and 바카라사이트 size of a small grapefruit - was diagnosed after a two-day nosebleed during 바카라사이트 long vacation at 바카라사이트 end of her first year.

She underwent six gruelling weeks of chemo바카라사이트rapy, suffered a stroke and at one stage was given only a week to live. But she recovered, learning to walk, talk and write again - in time to rejoin her second-year class after turning down 바카라사이트 offer of a one-year deferment. She says: "Finishing 바카라사이트 degree was important. I wanted something to put my mind on after all I had been through. If I hadn't gone straight back to 바카라사이트 university I would have lost my confidence and would have had too much time on my hands to think, 'Oh dear! I nearly died'."

Joanne, 22, spent her placement year as administrative assistant at 바카라사이트 Teesside Hospice, whose MacMillan nurses visited her throughout her illness. She graduated last summer with a first-class degree in public administration. She now works as a judgments officer at Teesside Combined Courts.