On 17 March 2020, an otherwise ordinary Tuesday morning, life as I knew it shattered. My dad called at 10am to say my mother had fallen while out running, hit her head and was now in hospital with a suspected brain bleed. Frantic with worry, he begged me to drive the four-hour journey home to Chester.
At first, I assumed he was overreacting; he had a history of dramatising health crises. But as I packed and began the drive north from Hampshire, doubt crept in. What if something more sinister had caused the fall? My chest tightened, fear flooding through me.
