I never expected the worst day of my life would start with a road trip.

It was October. I was 47, divorced and raising a seven-year-old daughter.

As many single mother do, I was also juggling a contract job in the corporate world that paid the bills but left little room for rest.

My head was in work mode. My body, I now realise, had been trying to talk to me for weeks. But when you're holding everything together with gaffer tape and grit, it's easy to miss the whispers.

I'd had this persistent pain in my shoulder - one I'd been ignoring for too long. I was going to a physio, but no one had suggested X-rays, and I hadn't pushed. 

There's always something else more urgent when you're a mother. When you're working. When you're the glue keeping everyone and everything together.

That said, the pain had pushed me to finally take a break. I'd planned a few days away with my daughter.

But on the morning of the trip, the pain in my arm was worse than ever. As I loaded up the car with our bags, it was killing me. Then as I firmly shut the boot, something inside my arm gave way.

Nina and her daughter, after cancer ravaged her arm, causing three catastrophic breaks 

I screamed out in pain so loudly that my neighbour heard and called an ambulance. 

Paramedics rushed me to emergency with a suspected shoulder dislocation, but X-rays quickly revealed my humerus - the bone in my upper arm - had pathologically broken in three places, which doctors immediately labelled as 'suspicious'. 

I was kept in overnight and the following morning, a junior doctor from oncology came to tell me his boss would be down shortly to see me. He had tears in his eyes.

That's when I knew it was serious.

What followed was a blur of scans and fear and being wheeled from one unknown to another. It turned out there was a tumour in my arm, which is what had caused the catastrophic breaks. 

It was identified as Ewing sarcoma - a rare, aggressive bone cancer. 

One-in-a-million, they said. Most people diagnosed are children. Not grown women balancing motherhood and mortgages and contracts.

I didn't know then that this diagnosis - this catastrophe - would also shine a torch on every corner of my life. Including my relationships. Including the one I had just begun.

Nina celebrating her final chemo treatment  

I had met him about a month earlier. We'd had one coffee date, then another where we went to a party together.

We chatted daily, texted constantly. We were planning our third date when I had to call and tell him I wouldn't make it. I was in emergency. Something was wrong with my arm.

He didn't hesitate. He turned up at the hospital. 

I didn't expect it - I told him, kindly, that I didn't expect him to stick around. I had cancer. A child. A fight ahead I wasn't even close to understanding.

But he insisted.

'This is too good,' he said. 'We've got something real. I want to be there.'

So I let him in. Hesitantly. Hopefully.

And from that point, it was like someone pressed fast-forward on our lives. The kind of fast-forward that even the producers of Married At First Sight would look at and say, 'Whoa, that's too much.'

But that's what happens when cancer enters the chat - everything accelerates. You're not dealing in small talk anymore. You're not debating where to get dinner or which movie to see. 

You're asking: 'Can I trust you with this version of me - the one who's broken, bald, scared and sick?'

He showed up. Constantly. He visited me in hospital during my seven-week stay. He sat beside me through hours of chemotherapy. He called me the same time every night without fail. He met my friends. My family.

He pushed my wheelchair through sterile hospital corridors like we were strolling through a park. He was there for my birthday. He was there at Christmas. He was there on New Year's Eve.

People noticed.

My friends called him an angel. The nursing staff - who'd seen it all - assumed he was my husband. One even whispered to me, 'Your husband is so handsome.' At first, I corrected them. 'Oh, he's not my partner… we've only been dating a short time.' But after a while, I stopped correcting anyone. Because in every way that mattered, he was acting like my partner. Like my life partner.

And I started to rely on him.

Not just for the help - though there was plenty of that. But also for the emotional scaffolding he provided. His presence made things feel less frightening. When you're in a war zone like cancer treatment, just knowing someone is beside you - truly beside you - makes the unbearable feel survivable.

It's a strange, disorienting thing to fall in love in the middle of chemo. To allow yourself to be hopeful while your body is being ravaged. But I let myself believe in him. In us.

And that belief would cost me more than I ever expected.

By the time February rolled around, I had already endured multiple rounds of chemotherapy and lost my hair, my eyebrows, my energy, and, some days, my sense of self. 

I was emaciated, exhausted and terrified - and staring down the barrel at limb-saving surgery. The plan was to remove my shattered arm bone and replace it with a titanium prosthesis. The alternative was amputation.

Nina with her daughter during cancer treatment 

And following the surgery I had another six months of treatment scheduled. Treatment that left me a little weaker each round, that I had to muster the strength to face. But first, surgery to try to rid my body of as much of the cancer as possible.

The surgery was scheduled for Valentine's Day.

The night before, he turned up with flowers and took me to dinner. The next morning, he took me to the hospital, kissed me goodbye before surgery, and told me he'd be waiting when I woke up.

And he was.

Until he wasn't.

When I went into surgery in February, we were six months into what had become a deeply entwined, accelerated relationship. The surgery was long - six, maybe seven hours.

He was there when I came out of surgery, talking to nurses at the station like he belonged. Like we were a team.

I was so unwell. The worst I had been. Surgery had left me reeling. He stayed until late that night and was back first thing in the morning.

And then he said he had to help a friend with something at their house. He kissed me goodbye. Promised to return.

He never came back.

No calls. No texts. No visits. No nothing. He disappeared so completely that my emails bounced. My calls wouldn't connect. I was in hospital, vomiting from the effects of surgery and chemo, and I was heartbroken in a way that felt inhumane.

Nurses assumed I was having a reaction to the medication. But it was grief. I was grieving someone who had chosen to vanish at my lowest point.

Everyone around me was bewildered. Nurses asked where he was. Friends didn't understand. I cried until I couldn't cry anymore.

Six months later, treatment finally over, I called him from a private number. When he answered, I said, 'It's Nina. Don't hang up.'

He was sheepish. He said he'd been depressed. That he'd seen a doctor. That he was on medication.

I said, 'Wouldn't it have been better to just tell me you couldn't cope?' Then I hung up. And I haven't spoken to him since.

He sent a long email a few weeks later explaining himself. I didn't respond. I didn't care anymore.

Because heartbreak like that - when you're already broken - changes you.

Incredibly, he wasn't the only loss.

Two of my closest friends - women who had stood beside me through divorces and career upheavals and motherhood, women I had known for more than a decade - walked away too.

One I considered a sister. Our lives were intertwined, our kids were close, our work overlapped. She came to visit in the early days, hugged me tightly, then asked for help on a professional course she was doing. I never saw her again.

Six months later, she called, wanting to hang out and 'watch a movie'. I confronted her. She said, 'I had personal problems.'

I replied, 'I had cancer.'

We haven't spoken since.

Another friend - my so-called best friend of 20 years - was there in the beginning. She bought me tights and beautiful shirts I could wear in hospital. She brought me food, sat by my bedside, helped with logistics. Then, after treatment ended, she just stopped. No more calls. No more visits.

When I asked her why, she said, 'You changed.'

Of course I changed. Cancer changes you. But not in the ways people think. Who you are doesn't change. But the way you function, that's a whole other story.

You learn to survive. To show up for yourself when others don't. To accept that grief isn't always about death - sometimes it's about the people who leave you when you're still here.

This is the thing no one tells you: cancer doesn't just strip your body of its strength, it reveals everything. It exposes who's real and who's not. It doesn't care about history or promises or appearances. It demands truth. It needs people who can stay when things aren't fun.

A counsellor once told me that when you get divorced, your friends distract you. 'Let's get drinks! Let's do lunch!' But cancer offers no distraction. No Instagrammable girls' nights. There's only the harsh, gritty, ugly reality of illness. And not everyone can sit with that.

But some people did. Some people stayed. The friends who dropped off food. The ones who picked up my daughter, had my daughter overnight and longer. The quiet, reliable circle who never asked for thanks but gave everything. They are the ones who matter.

Now, I'm writing a book.

It's for the people going through cancer - and just as much for the people supporting them. It's raw and honest, because there is no other way to be when you've faced your own mortality and come out scarred, but alive.

Nina lost a boyfriend and two friends during her cancer journey. Now she's writing a book to help others

I want people to know that being there doesn't mean fixing it. It means showing up. It means honesty over heroics. It means saying, 'I don't know what to do, but I'm here anyway.'

To anyone who's ever been ghosted in their darkest moment: I see you. You are not alone. You didn't deserve it.

To someone who has just received a diagnosis: I'm so sorry, this is tough, and no one will truly understand your journey; it's unique. More than ever, listen to your own body and be kind to yourself. If people ask what they can do, they mean it, so give them a task you know they are capable of. Don't be afraid to set boundaries and find one thing every day that's worth your attention, that's beautiful or interesting. Just one thing.

To anyone supporting a loved one through cancer: just stay. Even if you don't know the words, stay. Presence is everything when we are scared. Sometimes, staying is the bravest thing we can do.