On Wednesday the 8^th of November the world went dark.

I had been warned that when the cancer progressed again I would either go blind or drop dead. Rosa and I had discussed what would happen if it were the former. I would tell Siri to send her a message saying ‘I can’t see’.

On the  Monday before, I had my clinic appointment with my oncologist. My PET scan from the week prior had been stable. We were all smiles as we discussed how great I was feeling and doing, a year on from radiotherapy. I’d just returned from two wonderful weeks around India with my Mum and some of our friends, and was planning my next adventure.

 My eye was feeling a little tired, but I’d had a late night catching up with an old friend, and figured I just needed some sleep. I hadn’t been to hyperbaric for over a week due to their busy schedule.  On the Tuesday it was back in the diving bell. Then after, I met my friend Christina for lunch. Then I went on an adventure to find an amazing mural my friend Fipsi had painted on a wall in Walthamstow.

I wondered if I was maybe getting a migraine as my eye was feeling flashy around the edges. By the time I was in bed that evening, my eye was struggling to read my kindle in the low light so I decided it was time to sleep.

In the morning when I woke up I could see nothing. Everything was black.

08/11/2023 – 07:36am: ‘Hello Rosa my love I’m so scared I’ve woken up and I can’t see’

Miraculously I happened to be looking at my phone when Rosa called me back and although I couldn’t really see anything on the screen, I managed to pick it up. Thank goodness both of us were in London that morning, as it hadn’t been such a common occurrence over the course of the year. She said she was on her way over to my flat.

While I waited, I packed a hospital bag and somehow managed to make myself a smoothie in the darkness.

Rosa turned up at around 10:30 with a very much needed coffee. Then she proceeded to clean up after my smoothie attempt that went slightly awry. Then we called a Bolt and took ourselves off to A&E at UCLH.

First point of call, triage, where they had no access to my medical records, but somehow knew I’d been in India recently.

Blood tests first, then a CT s scan to make sure I wasn’t having a stroke… then various med people popped in and out over the course of the day. They shone lights in my eye, filled it with drops, and generally agreed that it looked fine.

‘That’s all well and good,’ I told them. ‘Do your routine tests, but I need an MRI scan asap, this is probably cancer.’

But no-one really seemed to be listening to me.

Sometime after 7pm, an A&E doctor tried to tell me it wouldn’t be cancer because of my recent stable scan but I knew from experience how fast these things can turn. There are never any guarantees, and I’m always wary of people who try to offer absolutes. They decided to keep me in anyway (as if I could have gone anywhere) and started me on some steroids to help with any inflammation.

Now that we knew they weren’t about to cast me out into the world, we decided it was safe for my next-of-kin/ICE/bestie/saviour Rosa to go home and get some rest. It was 8pm. I settled in on a plastic chair in A&E to wait for them to find me a bed. Apparently, every bed in the hospital was full.  At 2am they found me one within A&E. They then proceeded to wake me every hour or so, for obs, to ask me about my medication, or to give me tablets. Sleep was grasped in snippets as I waited to find out what would happen next…

(Disclaimer: For obvious reasons, please bear with me as progress from now will be slow.)