An afternoon in March 2020. I emerged in a daze on to the banal horrors of a London high street. Inside the hospital behind me, a surgeon had explained that not only did I have breast cancer, rather than the harmless cysts that the general practitioner, screening technicians and nurses had assured me were most likely, but the tumour was quite sizeable. It was diffuse, invasive and probably required removal of my right breast.

Normally, this type of hormone-dependent carcinoma would have placed me on a well-trodden treatment path: surgery to remove the tumour followed by endocrine medication. In the UK, this course has excellent results in cases that are identified early. But my case, like tens of thousands of others over the past two years, was not normal. My diagnosis coincided with the start of the Covid emergency and my treatment, postponed and precarious, coincided with the worst health crisis in the country’s modern history. So began the most surreal and extreme period of my life.

Yet I am one of the lucky ones. Some of those whose cancer symptoms began during the pandemic were too afraid to visit their GP or couldn’t get an appointment when they tried. For others, cancelled scans, interrupted chemotherapy and delayed operations tipped the scale away from survival.