Three visits later.

This is what it had come down to. The final week before...

I was calling in sick to work every day – not because I wanted to, but because I simply couldn’t manage it. My body was shutting down, and I needed rest in a way I’d never known before.

I was living like a hermit, hardly ever leaving the flat. In truth, I couldn’t. Even the thought of walking to the shop was exhausting, and when I did attempt it, it always ended the same way – me utterly wiped out, struggling to catch my breath, and in desperate need of a lie down. Honestly, it was as if my body had just completed a marathon.

Each night, I called my mum and dad in tears – exhausted, sore, terrified. I was barely sleeping, and genuinely starting to wonder if I’d ever feel normal again. I could hear the shift in their voices too: worry creeping in, even when they tried to sound calm.

It was Wednesday evening when the breaking point came. I was having my standard cry down the phone and my mum gently suggested that I go home for a few days.

“Get a sick line for work and book the next flight you can. We’ll look after you. All you need is some TLC and a taste of home.”

But all I could think about was the GP. The people who had brushed me off so many times before and made me feel like a nuisance. I honestly didn’t want to face them again. It was clear that they already thought I was full of it.

I also had a dentist appointment scheduled for Friday – yet another check-up on the gap that still hadn’t healed.

“You’re coming home,” my mum said. “And I’m coming to get you.”

Just like that – decision made. No debate. 

My dad booked her a flight from Belfast to Glasgow for the following afternoon, returning on the Friday evening, me in tow.

The tears came harder now, but for once, they weren’t from fear or pain. This was something closer to relief – the weight of it all easing, if only slightly. Because no matter how old you are, sometimes you just want your mum to take over, and your dad with his credit card, too scared to refuse her. 

And, as arranged the night before, she arrived that Thursday afternoon, making her way to our flat alone, because even the short walk to the train station was beyond me – never mind the ten-minute ride into the city to meet her partway. 

The moment she walked through the door, she snapped into gear without a second thought. Bags down. Kettle on. Already washing the dishes that lay abandoned in my sink.

That evening, I was completely out of it – dosed up on Co-Codamol and antibiotics. Mum treated us to a takeaway – really, she was probably just exhausted from running around after me all day – but within minutes of eating, I was sitting cradling the toilet…sick everywhere. 

Things were getting worse.

But I was far too tired and far too weak to even care anymore. So after picking me up off the floor and tucking me into bed, Mum left me to sleep it off. And before I knew it, Friday morning had arrived.

First stop on the agenda: the dentist.

The surgery was a two-minute walk from my flat – if even that – but it might as well have been miles away. I had to stop several times on the way just to catch my breath – sweat running down my face, and my skin as pale as a ghost’s. 

Once inside, the dentist took one look at me and her expression shifted from the polite concern I was used to, to something closer to alarm. She told us she’d managed to get me an appointment at the dental hospital later that day, but I knew she was now beginning to think I needed more than dental help.

So when my mum mentioned I had a GP appointment in an hour, the dentist didn’t hesitate – she kindly, but firmly, suggested we ask for a blood test. (Of course, that had already been at the top of Mum’s to-do list.)

After leaving the dentist's surgery, there was an hour to kill between appointments, but I didn’t have it in me to walk home and come back – despite it being practically around the corner. 

So we wandered a little further down the street and found a coffee shop with a quiet corner to sit and recover.

“Oh hen, you look terrible. You look like you need a hospital,” said the waitress, with that unapologetic Glaswegian honesty. 

It may have been brutal, but she wasn’t wrong. There I was, drenched in sweat, gasping for breath, and growing paler by the minute. Hardly my finest look.

All I could muster in response was a weak laugh before ordering a cup of tea and silently bracing myself for the dreaded GP appointment. The only comfort was knowing that this time, I wouldn’t be facing it alone. This time, I had a very determined mother in my corner.

Looking back on it now, I do believe that if I hadn’t been so unwell, I probably would’ve been mortified to have my mum come with me. After all, what 23-year-old needs their mum to hold their hand at the doctor’s?

But when the receptionist called my name, there was no pride left to protect. I was simply too exhausted to care.

I sat down across from the GP – me slumping into the chair, my mum planting herself firmly nearby – calm, but unmistakably ready to do battle.

I asked for the sick line. Answered the usual questions. And just as the doctor stood to usher us out with a polite but final smile, Mum cut in, her voice steady and sure:

“Do you not want to do a blood test?”

She pointed out her own history of anaemia and the worrying similarities in my symptoms. But, of course, the GP knew best. A blood test, she said, was “unnecessary.”

Mum didn’t argue. She didn’t have to. Her silence said it all: we weren’t leaving without that test.

Needless to say, I’ve never been more grateful for her than I was at that moment. 

Three times in four weeks, I went to my GP for help.

Three times, they missed what was right in front of them, not even attempting to figure it out.

Three times, my GP surgery failed me.

Lucky for me, that third time, I didn’t walk in alone.

I had my mum.