Lost in the fog.

Only now, looking back, do I realise how bad things really were – how time slipped and tangled together until my own memories stopped lining up with what actually happened.

It was true that I was moved from a bay to a private room, and then again when things got worse, but this didn’t all happen on July 11. Instead, it unfolded over several days, and it’s only in my memory that these events sit side by side, blurred into a single night.

But that’s how it is when your body starts to fail.

Your mind, it seems, is the first to check out – no notice, no apology, just a quiet “good luck” as it leaves you to it.

Which, I suppose, is why the nurses and consultants decided the safest place for me on the night of July 11 was the Intensive Care Unit.

As for what came after? There are two versions: mine and then everyone else's. So let me begin with what I remember.

The first is me lying under a bright spotlight while a team hovered over me, attempting to thread a line into my neck. I can’t remember the official name for it, but we called it my octopus legs – because honestly, the number of ports attached to it was comical.

Naturally, the procedure didn’t go smoothly, which is probably why I remember it so clearly. But after two attempts, two puncture wounds, and two new scars to add to the collection, they finally found success.

My second memory (or collection of half-memories) is of my mum and dad. They were only allowed in for short visits – two hours at most – and most conversations circled around Ben, who was sick at home and banned from ICU in case he brought his infection anywhere near me or my fellow neighbours. We already had enough to be dealing with. 

However, I hated not seeing him. And despite everything happening to me, I was far more worried about him being alone in our little flat, stewing in fear. As far as I was concerned, I was grand – albeit a bit delusional – but he was isolated and anxious, and I had no way to reassure him that I wasn't, in fact, dying.

Thankfully, my mind eased a little once my mother-in-law travelled over to keep him company, and I knew he was no longer on his own. 

However, looking back, I’m very glad my future husband wasn’t able to see me living my best life in the ICU, because my third memory… let’s just say it took whatever scraps of dignity I had left and tossed them straight out the window. Because nothing quite humbles you like being changed into an adult nappy at 25 years old. 

I wish I could say I’m exaggerating.

But aside from these memories, I wholeheartedly believed that ICU was uneventful. 

Quiet. Quick. Three days, I told myself – in and out. 

But what I learned much later – and when I say later, I mean years later –was this: It wasn’t three days. And it certainly wasn’t uneventful.

In fact, I’d had visitors – nurses, staff, people who told me we’d chatted and joked and held entire conversations – none of which I remember. Entire interactions vanished from my memory.

And my family? They were bracing for the worst.

Because it turns out I wasn’t “grand” at all – I was quite the opposite.

My immune system had completely flatlined after my last round of chemo, and the doctors were warning that if things didn’t improve soon, they’d have to consider a ventilator.

And if that happened…well, everyone would just have to hope for the best.

Which is why I now realise ignorance truly can be bliss, because if I’d fully understood what was happening – the conversations, the warnings, the fear – I would have crumbled.

But thankfully, and by some miracle, on the very morning the consultants had set as the deadline for change, a single neutrophil finally made itself known – a tiny sign that my bone marrow was regenerating – sparing me the ventilator, and the possibility of having to say goodbye.