Halfway through. Or maybe already past it.

The child swap has happened too. I handed over an exhausted Amina and received an enthusiastic, energetic Zaki in return. The only problem is that my own battery isn’t just empty anymore — it’s running on fumes, loaded with radiation, worn down by everything that came before it, and somehow still expected to function like a normal human being.

Still, it’s much better than being alone. It’s keeping me a kind of active. And the weekend is coming, which at least means no treatment for two days.

Not that the treatment itself is particularly dramatic. But it does take energy — mentally preparing for it, getting there, going through it, coming back home. It has quietly become its own daily mission.

By now, though, I’m practically a professional. No panic. No drama. I can hold my breath for those thirty seconds so easily now that sometimes I almost get smug about it. “That’s it? I could do longer.” Other times I drift off into my own thoughts halfway through and suddenly panic: Wait. Am I still holding it? Imagine accidentally daydreaming my way into irradiating my heart.

Though apparently that’s fairly unlikely. Earlier this week, when I was still battling whatever aggressive respiratory plague London gifted me, they explained that the machine automatically stops if I cough. At least I think that’s what they said. Either way, they don’t seem particularly interested in experimenting on people if they can avoid it.

The Marsden continues to tick every possible box. Kind, gentle, efficient, professional. You barely ever wait. Which feels strange in the middle of a city as huge and impersonal as London — walking into a hospital that somehow still feels deeply human.

The hospital itself is fascinating. Less like a hospital, more like a strange little oasis hidden inside the city. The walls are covered in artwork — mostly abstract paintings — but there are also framed children’s rainbows and poems scattered through the corridors. I photographed a few that really stayed with me. I wonder how many people actually stop to read them. I read every single one.

At first I felt slightly self-conscious standing there reading poetry in hospital hallways, worried people might stare.

Then I remembered: this is London. Nobody cares what you’re doing. And honestly, there are always at least three people nearby behaving far more strangely than I am.

Sometimes there’s even a little market inside the hospital selling fresh fruit. Which I genuinely think is incredibly cool. For a brief moment I considered suggesting the idea back in Jersey… then I remembered one of the hospital cafés there actually closed down. So perhaps demand for a charming little fruit market isn’t overwhelming. But who knows.

There’s also a grand piano sitting in the building for no apparent reason except existing beautifully. Learning piano has been hovering near the top of my bucket list for years now. I suspect it will continue hovering there for a while longer, because Amina’s one-and-a-half-week London adventure took a very personal interest in the bottom of my wallet.

But we’ve lived in between treatments too.

There was Camden Market, where we fought through crowds searching for the most reasonably priced Billie Eilish T-shirt in existence. A trip to Essex to visit Grandma. Wimbledon’s Hungarian shop, where we bought enough Túró Rudi to feed a small village and of course couldn’t finish it all. Endless walks through Oxford Street and shopping centres, moving from store to store hunting down every possible Billie Eilish relic known to humanity.

At this point, I’m beginning to feel like I’ve accidentally adopted Billie Eilish against my will.

She’s become such a constant presence in our lives that she may as well be a distant relative now.

There are worse soundtracks to survival, I suppose.