Laurie is hoping to run her own business in future

Laurie, a pupil at Pontllanfraith Comprehensive School in Caerphilly county borough, describes what she has been through and what she is hoping for.

After I chose my GCSEs and started doing the coursework for them I was diagnosed with leukaemia. It was quite shocking.

It's something you don't expect to happen to you.

All I had were kidney infections, then all of a sudden they said it was leukaemia.

I didn't want to be treated differently

Very quickly I started losing my hair - I kept it up in a bobble but after a couple of weeks of treatment I took the bobble out and the hair came with it.

I'm taking eight GCSEs and I need at least six Cs with all Bs in sciences in order for me to do the courses I want to in college.

In the long term, my plan is to have my own physiotherapy clinic, I've always wanted to do it.

While I was in hospital I was given a laptop computer. It meant I could get on with my school work.

Nervous

People ask me why I kept going. If I had stayed behind a year, I would have been going to college on my own and I wouldn't know anyone, so I just wanted to be the same as everyone else, I didn't want to be treated differently.

Lots of people have helped me. I had a tutor who came to see me in hospital and at home and my next-door neighbour is a biology teacher so if I got stuck on that she'd come over and help.

My sister's friend's father is a maths teacher. He used to come over on Sunday to do maths with me.

My English teacher and my Spanish teacher from school would come and help me as well.

I couldn't have finished my exams without all the help and support they gave me.

I did go back to school, it was difficult at first, people didn't want to come up and talk to me because they were worried about upsetting me, but after a while it was fine.

It did feel a bit strange, but I didn't want to be away from my friends.

So how do I feel about my results?

Well, I'm quite confident. I did quite a lot of work for them, but at the same time I'm really nervous about what my results might be.