You never forget your first (nurse).

AML tris 8 (NPM and FLT3 negative).

AML 19 – FLAG-IDA + Myelotarg, FLAG-IDA, HDAC, HDAC.

That’s it. 

That’s all I have to show for five months of treatment. 

A couple of lines. A handful of acronyms. 

Sterile. Cold. Unambiguous.

I know there’ll be more notes somewhere – buried in online files, tucked away in some hospital admin system – but this? This is what sits at the top of my most recent clinical review.

To a consultant, it’s just data.

A list of drugs. A record of protocol.

To them, this is the cancer journey.

But here’s what those lines will never tell you:

They won’t show the nights I sweated through sheets.

The mornings I couldn’t move, curled around a sick bowl.

They don’t count the cannulas, the blood tests, the PICC line dressing changes.

They don’t mention the anti-sickness pump taped to my arm, feeding medication into my veins, 24/7.

They don’t explain how my food lost its flavour.

How even water tastes foreign.

There’s no mention of the day my hair began to fall.

Or the moment I realised my eyelashes were gone.

Those acronyms might tell you what they gave me.

But they’ll never tell you what it took.

Of course, I’ll be forever grateful to the doctors and consultants I met during that time.

They are some of the brightest minds I’ve ever encountered – insanely gifted, dedicated, masters of their field. 

But while they understood the science – tracked the reactions, monitored the side effects – they weren’t the ones rubbing my back at 3am while I shook and cried and retched into a bowl.

That was the nurses. The ones who truly saw beyond the processes and procedures.

They say you never forget your first – and yes, I know that phrase usually means something else entirely – but in this case? It couldn’t be more true.

Jane: colourful, charismatic, always full of light.

Jen: cheeky, sharp-witted, warm.

Wendy: fierce, fearless – and secretly the biggest softie of them all.

Sarah. Gemma. Louise. Eleanor. Trish. Tammy. Donna. Lorna…the list goes on.

And every single one of them was extraordinary.

But my favourite – if I’m allowed to have a favourite – was Tracy.

Always chatting. Always joking. Always ready with the biggest, safest hugs.

Tracy wasn’t just a nurse. She was a lifeline.

She’d talk Celtic and football with Ben – the two of them forever locked in matchday banter.

With my dad, she’d trade stories from her time working at Faslane Naval Base – a shared thread between them.

And with my mum, it was quieter. It was the unspoken knowing. The shared pain of being a mother, watching your child go through hell.

She never sugar-coated the truth – but she wasn’t harsh with her words either.

She was clear. Honest. Deeply human.

And on the days when things felt uncertain or hard, she was right there.

With a cuddle.

A pep talk. 

Or her quietly powerful presence that told me, simply and surely: 

You’re not in this alone.

I always felt better when Tracy was on shift.

I trusted her. I believed her. I took comfort in her care.

She is one of a kind – and I count myself unbelievably lucky to have met her.

Even if it did mean getting leukaemia.