Questions & choices.

Less than a week.

That’s all it took for everything I’d ever dreamt of, imagined for myself, or looked forward to, to come crumbling down around me.

In truth, it was probably even sooner. But by Thursday, March 29th – six days after being admitted to Ward 4C at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital – I was starting treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. A diagnosis that had been confirmed just three days earlier.

Now, normally, decisions like this aren’t made so quickly. But thanks (once again) to the unprofessionalism and neglect of my GPs, I didn’t exactly have the luxury of time. And suddenly, I was faced with decisions I wasn’t even remotely prepared to make.

The first? Whether I wanted to enrol in a clinical trial.

A great way to ease into things, right? The difference between life and death.

Do you stick with what’s known – what’s proven – or choose a path still being tested, and still unknown?

Thankfully, we had an amazing team behind us, who had a way of explaining it all so clearly – what the medical mumbo-jumbo actually meant, the key differences between trial and standard treatments, and making sure I knew I’d get the best care either way.

But at 23 years old, after weeks of pain, confusion, and mismanagement – not to mention a brand-new cancer diagnosis – I just wanted a timeout. A minute to breathe.

I’d always been terrible at science. Hated it. Loathed it, in fact. And now everything in my life – every decision, every conversation – was being led by scientific evidence and clinical trials. How the hell was I supposed to choose a treatment path when all I could think about was the very real possibility that I could die?

In those first few days, I was barely present. I heard what the doctors were telling me. I understood the words coming from the nurses’ mouths. I could hold a conversation with my parents, my brother, Ben, his family… anyone who came to see me. But I was still lost – swallowed by the fear that, at 23, this could be it.

Had I done enough? Had I made it count?

All the usual clichéd questions – but suddenly, they weren’t clichés. They were mine.

And then the questions got darker.

Why me?

Did I do something wrong?

Was this because I’d wasted so many years struggling with anxiety and sadness?

Was it punishment for not living my best life?

Was I a bad person?

Did I deserve to be here?

It’s hard looking back and remembering those fears. Maybe because they still linger.

Only now, they’ve shifted. Now I ask:

Why did I survive?

What am I here for?

Am I making the most of it?

But those are questions for another part of this story. Because for now, this was where I was. And if that mental turmoil wasn’t enough, I was then told something that hit harder than the word “cancer” ever could:

I might never be a mum.

At least, not in the way I’d ever imagined myself to be.