Playing hide and seek with my niece and nephew, I smiled as they shrieked with excitement. I loved spending time with Natasha, then seven, and Taylor, three. It was December 1996 and, aged 27, I was enjoying single life but had always known that I wanted to have a family one day. In fact, I’d already picked out names for my future babies: Harrison for a boy and Maddison Mae for a girl, or Harry and Maddy for short. For now, though, I was focusing on my admin career.
Only, after a skiing holiday the following month, I had flu-like symptoms and unexplained bruises, then a hospital blood test in January 1997 brought some devastating news.
‘You have leukaemia,’ a specialist explained, as I
