The quiet.

Was I depressed? I don’t think so.

Was I absolutely fed up with life on a hospital ward, having cancer, and feeling like shit? Absolutely.

Along with everything else that post-ICU life brought, came a new kind of frustration: the heavy, suffocating kind that settles deep into your bones and stays there.

I wanted to go home, to be in my own bed, to order a takeaway with Ben, curled up on the sofa watching a movie or one of our favourite shows. I wanted the version of normal we’d had before all of this. Even the most boring and mundane parts of it, like going for groceries or changing the bedding.

I wanted to feel the cool outside air on my skin. To smell it. To remember what “fresh” felt like.

I wanted to wear jeans and trainers again, or a dress with a cute pair of boots, instead of pjs and slippers 24/7.

I wanted to wander around town, go for lunch, browse the shops, maybe buy something I absolutely couldn’t justify spending the money on, but doing it just because.

I wanted to feel normal. 

Healthy. 

Carefree. 

Human.

My blood counts had been creeping up again, and my strength – very reluctantly – was following close behind. 

I could now manage a few laps of the ward before needing to collapse back into bed – less if a drip stand was tagging along beside me. I was also starting to eat a little more, too, and actually hold proper conversations with my mum, dad, and Ben instead of just nodding along.

So every day, I found myself asking the same question to the docs: Can I go home yet?

But, to my disappointment, the answer was always the same.

No. Not today. You just need to give it time.

However, as time continued to pass, it didn’t take long for me to realise just how much the ICU had taken from me, and how the story I remembered was missing more than a few pieces.

Worse still, I’d hoped we’d be planning for Dublin, and the thing that was supposed to save me.

But instead, it just kept drifting out of reach every time it felt I was getting that little bit closer to it. 

And so came the late night whispers:

Would this ever end?

Would I make it to my transplant?

What if my donor got tired of waiting? What if they changed their mind and we had to start again?

What if Dublin didn’t have a place for me?

What if something else went wrong?

What if my body couldn’t take any more?

What if…

What if…

What if…

But this wasn’t depression.

It only looked like it to the people around me – the nurses, the social workers, my family.

All those who saw the quietness in me and assumed it meant something it didn’t.

The reality was that anger and frustration were all I had left in me, and I didn’t have the strength to disguise them for anything else.

I didn’t want a psychologist to unravel my feelings and analyse every sigh. 

I didn’t want the AYA nurse specialist suddenly playing the caring professional, when historically she only ever talked about herself – rugby matches, boyfriend issues, whatever drama she’d picked up that day.

I didn’t want advice.

I didn’t want pep talks.

I didn’t want manufactured optimism.

I just didn’t want to be there anymore.

And frankly, who would?