One Step At A Time

Chapter 25 — Home, Eventually

2026-08-06T17:19:25Z

The third time, it turns out, is not the charm. I have now attempted to be discharged from Castle Hill Hospital on three separate occasions. Each time has been its own particular exercise in frustration. Each time I have told myself that surely this ...(read more)

Chapter 24 — Phil M. RIP.

2026-07-30T05:19:53Z

I’ve been in hospital for a month today. I didn’t plan to mark it with anything. There’s no milestone worth celebrating at four weeks — no trophy, no certificate, no moment where someone comes in and says well done, you’...(read more)

Chapter 23 — Out of Nowhere

2026-07-24T17:45:06Z

The meeting that followed Tom's early morning visit was, in its own way, just as significant as the visit itself. If the problem was that nobody had full oversight of my case — that decisions were being made in isolation, that information e...(read more)

Chapter 22 — 7:30am

2026-07-16T08:34:29Z

England lost to Argentina in the semi-final last night. Two minutes after the final whistle, a nurse came in to tell me I was being put on a 12 hour drip for phosphate and potassium. No explanation. Nobody knew why. Just another thing happening to me...(read more)

Chapter 21 — Finding It Tough

2026-07-15T12:26:46Z

I want to start this one differently. Every chapter so far has found a way to end on something positive — a small win, a moment of humour, a reason to keep going. I'm going to try to do that again here, because I do believe it, and because ...(read more)

Chapter 20 — Jinxed It

2026-07-07T07:56:05Z

I jinxed it, didn't I. Chapter 19 was called "Ten Quiet Days." I wrote about getting back to normal, feeling well, doing some work, cooking properly. I practically signed off with a cheerful wave and the suggestion that having less to w...(read more)

Chapter 19 — Ten Quiet Days

2026-06-20T15:53:00Z

It's been ten days since I last wrote one of these. Ten days is a long gap by my standards over the last few months, and I think that gap actually tells its own story. When there's less to write about, less drama to process, that's usually a sign thi...(read more)

Chapter 18 — Another Week in Castle Hill

2026-06-10T15:37:42Z

There is a particular kind of frustration that must only exists in hospitals. It isn't the frustration of pain, or fear, or uncertainty — though all of those are present too. It's the frustration of a system that is simultaneously extra...(read more)

Chapter 17 — The Price of the Cheat Code

2026-06-03T19:00:08Z

Nobody told me it would feel like someone was slicing my penis in half. That's not the kind of thing that appears in the immunotherapy leaflets. The leaflets talk about fatigue and flu-like symptoms. They mention, in passing, that some patients ...(read more)

Chapter 16 — The Cheat Code

2026-05-31T05:09:22Z

Tuesday 26th May. Immunotherapy day. We arrived at the Queens Centre at Castle Hill Hospital just before nine. I’d been asked to come in for nine, so being half an hour early felt like the right approach — keen, prepared, ready. We headed...(read more)

Chapter 15 - Last Weekrnd

2026-05-31T04:59:37Z

There’s a particular kind of weekend that exists in cancer treatment — the last one before everything changes. The weekend before the first infusion. The weekend where you still feel like yourself, where the drugs haven’t arrived ye...(read more)

An Update — This Week

2026-05-22T04:12:45Z

Immunotherapy is confirmed for Tuesday. That’s about as quickly as they could have started it given everything that’s happened over the last few weeks — the Gamma Knife, the seizure, the steroid reduction — and the fact that i...(read more)

Chapter 14 - The Guilt and The Plan

2026-05-21T05:08:39Z

When the critical illness payout was confirmed, my first feeling wasn’t relief. It was guilt. Which is, when you think about it, completely absurd. I’d paid £18.99 a month since September 2017. Eight years of premiums, nearly &pound...(read more)

Chapter 13 — Family

2026-05-19T06:48:40Z

In July this year, Lucy and I will have been married for fifteen years. We were together for ten years before that. Twenty-five years, more or less, of being on the same page — about life, about what we wanted, about how we approached things an...(read more)

Chapter 12 — The Release

2026-05-17T05:48:54Z

Thursday came and went. Weird Doctor — as we had come to call him — had mentioned, almost in passing, that there was a chance I might be able to go home on Thursday. I knew it was unlikely. I had a senior oncology appointment with Dr Rana...(read more)