Not my finest hour.

There’s probably a lot more I could tell you about those first few weeks and months in Belfast. About the people I met and the friendships that began to form. But the only memories that really hold space are those of treatment and trauma.

As I’d been on a clinical trial before, I chose to stay on that path. This time, the prescribed route was three rounds of a chemo called CPX – its only redeeming quality being its spectacular, almost fluorescent shade of purple – followed by a round of high-dose Cytarabine (HDAC).

And if all went to plan – if I managed to reach remission again – I’d then travel to Dublin for another brutal round of chemotherapy to wipe out my immune system, ready for my new, and hopefully much healthier, stem cells.

That was the plan. But, as we all know too well, things don’t always go to plan.

The first round was, thankfully, quite uneventful – just the standard sickness and infections.

Though there is one night that vividly sticks in my mind.

I’d gone to use the toilet when, out of nowhere, that unmistakable surge hit. I barely had time to unlock the door before I was on my knees, wrapped around the toilet bowl, tears streaming down my face, barely able to lift my head.

But once the worst had passed and I decided it was safe to return to bed, things only got worse. I couldn’t move. Not even an inch.

Fortunately, I was in a bay, and it was still early enough that my roommates weren’t quite in the land of nod. So, to my rescue they came – or rather, they called for the nurse to handle the situation.

Honestly, God knows what I looked like when he opened the door to that little cubicle. I tend to imagine a newborn foal: all legs, no grace. Only in this scenario, the foal in question is curled up on the bathroom floor without an ounce of strength left to do anything about it, while quietly praying for a quick and dignified end.

But the poor man didn’t even flinch – he just vanished for a moment and reappeared with a wheelchair, ready for the rescue mission.

And so, marking what I hoped would be the lowest point in this already delightfully humiliating journey, that angel of a man somehow managed to haul me up and plonk me onto the chair.

Once I was safely returned to my bed, I just laughed. The kind of laugh that’s half relief and half defeat.

Because when your bed’s two feet from the toilet and you still need someone to wheel you there, it’s hard not to see the absurdity of it all.

Cancer 1. My dignity 0.