I am not alone, and my journey towards diagnosis is far from the most traumatic or frustrating I’ve come across. When I was admitted to hospital, I was reborn in 48 hours. High on morphine and disbelief, I sat cross-legged, whispering late into the night with women 20 years my senior, bearing witness to the injustice they suffered. I met one woman who worked as a senior financial executive, before the disease snatched all she had worked for from her grasp. Her own Worst Night was unspeakably terrible. Standing in line at Pret with a bunch of male colleagues, she felt an agonising, pulling sensation, and passed a clot the size of a golf ball, right there among the sandwiches and the juice. She was referred for an emergency hysterectomy, to be performed the day after I was discharged. I felt my stomach drop as she told me she felt wicked for not being sorry or sure, felt rushed, felt scared the finality would haunt her. She blossomed from acquaintance to ally overnight and I think of her often, see her manifest in supermarket queues and crowded carriages. I don’t remember her name, but I hope she knows that she is strong and brilliant, and that none of this is her fault.