Shadows.

It was late August when I was officially moved from inpatient to outpatient, after five long months.

Sure, I’d had a few nights away from the ward since my diagnosis in March – little breathers between treatment rounds – but this felt different. Final.

I was done. Cured.

I’d already been told I was in remission back in May, after my very first round of chemo. But remission doesn’t mean finished. The cancer might have gone, but the process had to be honoured. Two rounds to kill, two rounds to keep the peace.

Still, the idea of never again falling asleep to the sound of beeping monitors, or waking at 2am to a nurse sliding a thermometer in my ear, was glorious. Goodbye, hospital food. Farewell, antiseptic air. So long, plastic pillows and scratchy sheets.

I was ready. Ready to move on. Ready to live again.

So why couldn’t we leave yet?

I might have been finished with the ward, but the doctors weren’t finished with me. Not yet.

Adam’s 18th was coming up on September 22. My cousin Emma’s wedding on the 25th. 

And I wanted so badly to be home for both. 

But every clinic visit ended the same way – Mum and I asking the question we were desperate to have answered: “When can we go home?” And every time, the doctor would smile softly and say, “Not quite yet.”

They were right, of course. They needed to make sure the handover to my new care team in Northern Ireland was arranged. But knowing that didn’t make the waiting any easier, and the uncertainty gnawed at me constantly. 

I was so desperate to close this chapter. To slam the hospital doors behind me and throw myself into life again. 

I’d built up this idea of who I’d be “after” – stronger, freer, changed. But the more time passed, the further away that version of myself felt. 

Every day I looked out onto the cold, metallic front of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Feeling trapped under its shadow. 

Northern Ireland was my chance to get away from the memories. The pain. The fear. 

It was a chance to get back home. To familiarity, comfort and safety.

I’d be going back to the GP who had known me growing up. Returning to the places and people I’d spent much of my life getting to know. 

All I had to do was wait.

So Mum and I filled the days with whatever scraps of normality we could find.

A walk in the park. A coffee in some little café. A trip to IKEA, where we didn’t actually buy anything but wandered the store anyway, pretending life was ordinary.

But it wasn’t easy for her either. She wanted home as much as I did. And with me wiped out most afternoons, napping for hours, I knew she often felt lonely. Tired of always trying to keep the minutes ticking by.

We were waiting, together but apart. Stuck in this strange limbo – not sick enough for a ward, not free enough for home. Just suspended. 

It wasn’t until a week before Adam’s birthday that we finally got the news we’d been so desperate for. And we didn’t waste a second. 

We booked the boat. Packed the car (well, Mum did – I mostly supervised). And hit the road for home.

Nothing was going to stop us. Not even Storm Ali, raging its way across the Irish Sea.

Every sailing before ours had been cancelled, but somehow the sea gods were on our side. And although the crossing was rough, after two bumpy hours, we'd made it.

Back on Northern Irish soil. 

Me, free from leukaemia. 

Mum, reunited with Dad, Adam, and the cat. 

And two big family milestones just days away.

For the first time, I could picture moving forward.

But leaving Glasgow didn’t mean leaving everything behind. And I’d soon learn that some shadows follow you home.