The waiting room.

I was told later that I shouldn’t have been able to walk into the hospital that afternoon of March 23rd, 2018.

Even now, I don’t know how I managed it.

Part of it, I suppose, was fear.

The taxi ride had been a blur of panic and questions aimed at my mum:

What do you think is wrong? Are you sure it’ll be okay? What if I need a blood transfusion? Does it hurt?

Thinking back, it almost makes me laugh. I truly had no idea my entire world was about to be flipped upside down, and that a blood transfusion would be the least of my worries.

But no – it wasn’t fear that made the walk down that long, bland corridor so difficult.

It was the simple fact that my body was failing me.

Putting one foot in front of the other felt like a conscious, monumental task.

Every breath was rationed. Every step measured.

I just needed to find a seat – any seat – and I’d be alright.

The GP had sent me to the Acute Receiving Unit at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. A sleek, state-of-the-art hospital that looked like it had been dropped in from another galaxy. Futuristic, sterile, and utterly surreal.

Over the years, I’d always taken pride in never needing a hospital.

Perhaps because I left that role to my younger brother, Adam. A sports enthusiast and fellow disaster magnet, he'd made regular appearances in hospital ERs growing up thanks to numerous sprains, breaks, and cuts.

But me? I’d only required emergency care once – when I was about six years old and managed to launch myself off a toddler trampoline with such dramatic flair that I ended up in A&E.

It was an act that defied logic, gravity, and any basic understanding of how trampolines work.

But from that day on, I vowed to always follow caution, even if my clumsiness had other plans.

Therefore, to have made it down that long, sterile corridor and into the waiting room of doom – where the tension hung as heavy as the fluorescent lighting – I genuinely had no idea what to expect.

The space was crammed full of people who, I could’ve sworn, looked far worse than me. But clearly that wasn’t the case, because after a relatively short wait (especially for a place like this), I was called through.

Only later would I understand that being seen so quickly wasn’t luck – it was a warning.