Recently, I have been obsessed with daffodils. They are the only flower I’m not allergic to but also I’m sure I’m not the only English person who craves seeing their yellow heads peeping up through the ground as they promise of the end of cold and dark days. They adorn my house and I’ve taken them to anyone I’ve visited recently. They remind me of the Albert Camus quote “In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer”. During the past week, I have had to dig deeper than the shrubs to try to find some sunshine through the bleak winter.

Greg’s first round of his new chemotherapy treatment went spectacularly badly. Ironically, we spent the majority of the time he sat having the infusion talking about how well it was going. During the last few minutes, he started to wince with pain and within seconds he was howling and convulsing with eyes rolling back like he had downed multiple bottles of whisky. There was projectile vomiting and a mass of nurses running to his help.

It’s a weird feeling to see someone you love in this much pain; it was too much for my heart so I felt myself mentally step back, like I was watching it on a screen. It let me be practical and do whatever I needed to support Greg. I knew the health professionals could resolve it with flushes of antihistamines and an arsenal of opiates but I knew my role was just as important, that I would be whom Greg was focusing on through the melee. I made sure I held his leg and whispered that I’m here, that everything was going to be ok, that the pain would fade and it would be all over soon. It reminded me of the births of Dali and Bay, when Greg sat in front of me and whispered the same things.

A massive shot of morphine meant that Greg had stabilised within a couple of hours and the ward got to enjoy a full blown Brexit rant whether they wanted to or not. I was so shaken up by what I saw but was supported by the incredible nurses and doctors in oncology. The NHS is an incredible machine that runs on the compassion, good will and dedication of the most wonderful humans. We cannot let this be destroyed.

* Stacey Heale has left her career as a fashion lecturer to focus on her two lively little girls and husband, Delays frontman Greg Gilbert, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2016. She launched the viral campaign Give4Greg to raise funds for lifesaving treatment: gofundme.com/give4greg. You can read more at her blog, www.beneaththeweather.com