Laurel House.

Coming home should have been the easy part – familiar streets, familiar faces, a bed that was mine again. But home came with its own complications, and the biggest of them all was starting over with a brand-new healthcare team.

New consultants. New nurse specialists. New social workers. Every one of them a stranger. A face I didn’t yet know I could trust.

And I knew I couldn’t really compare oncology staff to a GP practice – they’re different worlds, with different expertise – but after the poor experience I’d had with my GP surgery in Glasgow, I was now wary of the unknown. Especially when it meant putting my life in their hands.

I couldn’t exactly pick and choose from a list of haematologists, scrolling Google Reviews for who to avoid. When I first landed in the Queen Elizabeth, these expectations never came to mind – in truth, I was far too ill to wonder if the team would be any good. Luckily, they were. In fact, I’d been looked after so well in Glasgow that it felt greedy to hope for the same again.

Still, I took comfort in knowing the team there would have been thorough in my handover, passing every detail on to Northern Ireland, leaving no stone unturned.

But the anxiety lingered. These people didn’t know me. They didn’t know my quirks. They hadn’t seen me at my worst, or learned the shorthand of my story the way the Glasgow team had.

Fortunately, my fears melted the moment I walked into Laurel House, a small cancer unit tucked beside Antrim Area Hospital.

My Teenage and Young Adult nurse specialist, Kerry, was the first person who made the place feel less like a clinic and more like a haven. She was so full of energy but never overbearing; gentle and kind, but with a spark that said she wasn’t a pushover. She was sharp, clever, and immediately reassuring.

Then there was Dr Aaron. He had that same calmness I’d felt with Dr Gillian in Glasgow – steady, approachable, and with just enough humour to remind you he was human too.

Finally, I could breathe.

And after my first few weeks, visits to Laurel House fell into a steady rhythm. Mum and I would arrive, bloods would be taken, we’d grab a cuppa and a chat with Kerry, then we'd wait for Dr Aaron to call us in to review a script that rarely changed: blood counts, tablets, how I was feeling... 

On paper, everything was looking good. 

Results were steady. Tablets were being lowered. And the physical signs of cancer were fading with each visit – and with them, the number of appointments I had to attend.

But my battle wasn’t just about maintaining good blood counts – it was also about fixing my mental health.

I’d been referred for assessment not long after returning home, and just before December the outcome was decided: post-traumatic stress. 

Seriously? I could’ve told them that without a psychology degree. Still, with a formal diagnosis, now all I had to do was wait for an appointment with the oncology psychologist.

Until that time came, I found that my fear of relapse was slowly easing with every boringly positive check-up. My strength was creeping back, bit by bit. My hair was growing as fiery as ever, despite everyone saying it would change. And the wedding? It was now only four months away.

So maybe I got cocky. Maybe I was just arrogant about how well I was doing.

Either way, a few days after passing my driving test – and learning I finally had an appointment with the psychologist –I decided it was time to go it alone.

I’d drive myself to the hospital, go to my psychology appointment, and, since I was already in the area, I’d pop into Laurel House to get my bloods checked. It was all arranged.

For the first time in a long time, it would just be me. No Mum. No Ben.

I was ready to prove I could handle it. That life was edging its way back to normal.

But normal, of course, had other plans that afternoon.