IT’S been four months, two weeks and three days since I read about CAR-T therapy, the pioneering cancer treatment that will, I hope, save my life where all other treatments failed. A fragment from the Newcastle Chronicle, passed to me by a fellow patient in Raigmore, that promised a way out of this fast-developing nightmare seemed almost too good to be true.

As I read, my eyes misted over with tears at what felt like deliverance.

This week, at King’s College Hospital in London, I found myself in tears again, out of nowhere. I am finally here, and tomorrow, my genetically-engineered T-cells will be infused back into my body, where they will, I hope, attack the cancer cells and ... cure me.

I know, I can hardly believe it either.

My story began last summer, with a diagnosis of lymphoma, seemingly the kind of cancer you want (if you have to have one), because it is so treatable, and the curative rates are reassuringly up there at 60% or so.

But not for me.

I had R-CHOP, the first-line treatment, and it failed. I had R-DHAP, the second-line treatment, and it failed. And so on, until we came to November, and a consultant was warning me that I may not live more than weeks, certainly not a year.

I have a daughter aged 13, and a son aged 10. I came to motherhood relatively late, and I stayed at home with the children, because I was lucky enough to be able to afford to, and because I just didn’t want to miss a minute. I loved all those days looking at ducks and clouds, cooking things we saw in stories, messing about and talking and walking.

Och yes, some days were screeching and Lego underfoot and a level of sleep deprivation you can only hallucinate about, of course they were. But I loved their company, having these two little people around me all the time, and I took it for granted I would see this thing through, see them into adulthood and beyond.

A childminder I met, an older woman, said the greatest thing about ageing is knowing your children have reached the safe shores of maturity, that you have outlived the nightmare of leaving them as children.

Nightmare is the word. They were all I thought of as the consultant said, very gently, very kindly, those dreadful words.

But things took a different direction very quickly. I was having another go at chemo when I met Jean, and she passed on this scrap of paper. This, I knew, was where I had to get to.

The barriers were immense.

It wasn’t available in Scotland, it was only accessible to me through a clinical trial, and that was in April, which at that time might as well have been the year 2525. There were no private options other than in America, where it cost at least $750,000. And even then, it might not work, I might not live that long, I might run out of money… In desperation, which is the only word for it, I launched a GoFundMe to raise £500,000. To my astonishment, and delight, it went viral within hours. I mean, hours. My friends and neighbours in Beauly picked it up, saw the urgency, and got together to brainstorm fundraising ideas. Within a fortnight, the Beauly Brownies had hosted a bingo night that was so over-subscribed, they had to turn people away.

And these people who were being turned away bunged in their money anyway. There were cake sales at workplaces, squares selling in almost every establishment in Beauly, Muir of Ord and Dingwall. There was a car wash by the retained firefighters, a car boot sale, Burns nights and raffles.

One couple gave me a cheque for £50,000. A young guy sold his car and gave me £1000. A lovely wee lad gave me his £30 birthday voucher. “I don’t need this,” he said, “you do”.

The Kleenex was getting well hammered in our household, I can tell you. The sheer goodness and energy being directed my way was overwhelming, and we watched the GoFundMe total click up and up, like the most personal, important telethon of them all.

Some nights, I was so excited, I needed to read a good couple of chapters of my Spanish Civil War book to calm down. People would hug me in the street, saying this was the most exciting and enjoyable January they’d ever had.

Our plan was to go to Boston, where I could access treatment at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Just as soon as I had the money.

We got messages from friends of friends in Boston, offering us lifts, meals, help finding accommodation and in negotiating the private health care system. It was terrifying, but it seemed to be getting closer and more possible. “Two months?” my daughter asked, “In Boston?” We played it up, with talk of pizza and baseball games. This didn’t seem the time to talk about frightening-looking toxic side effects, such as soaring fevers and vomiting, and a neuro-toxicity that can look like brain damage, and the risk of death in treatment. I thought about Malcolm, my husband, and the two children, alone in a distant city, and me too sick to travel. Or worse. Shit.

We also needed more money. The £500,000 was actually rather an under-estimate, and we were scrabbling around trying to find ways to raise an extra £180,000, through maxing out credit cards (not just ours), and re-mortgaging. How were we going to manage afterwards?

Then came a phone-call, on a sunny Tuesday morning, from Ian Blackford, our local MP. I mostly screamed at him, and sobbed, but he said something about “treatment in England” and “NHS-funded”, and suddenly everything was easy. Relatively speaking.

My consultant at Raigmore, Dr Forsyth, had requested King’s because it was near my brother’s house. It’s a 10-minute walk, and another 10 by train. It couldn’t be easier.

When I came down to meet the staff – my new consultant phoned me that night! – it felt like a dream. I mean, really. Here were actual people, not just me, talking about CAR T-cell therapy, and how it worked, and when I would be starting treatment. Here was the ward, here was Orla, the lead nurse, here was the cure, the answer.

IN the past few weeks, I’ve had my T-cells harvested, a painless enough process involving tubes in both arms and a machine that looks straight out of Tom Baker-era Doctor Who. My entire blood supply circulated through this boxy, tubey thing six or seven times, while I slurped tea and ate custard creams. No bad, eh?

They went to California, via the Netherlands, to be transformed into cancer-killing Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells, which will be able to recognise and target the cancer cells. As I explained to the Brownies in my award-winning science lecture, it’s like wee mad spaceships being equipped with night-vision goggles. And guns, of course.

Meantime, I had kidney function tests, a PET scan, x-rays and echo-cardiograms. Everything’s fine and good to go. The cells are now back, to be defrosted tomorrow, and infused straight away. It should take about half an hour, and then there’s nothing for it but to sit back and wait for the storm to hit.

I’m scared. No, I’m terrified. I can’t be sure this will work, and I can’t consider the consequences of it not.

There’s a film called Man On Wire, about Philippe Petit’s walk across a high wire, which just so happened to be strung between the tops of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. It’s an electrifying piece of work.

And at its heart is one moment when, as he describes it, he must transfer his weight from the building on to the wire.

I’m there on top of that tower. A glorious place to be. But I can’t linger here. Tomorrow, ready or not, I push out on to the high wire. And I fall, or not.

How to support Roz Paterson

ROZ Paterson launched a hugely successful fundraiser to pay for her cancer treatment when it was only available in America. Her story encouraged people to give more than £500,000.

But when arrangements were made to have the treatment in London she gave the money back, as circumstances had changed. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t need your help. The cost of staying in London for Roz and her family is not inconsiderable.

To help meet those costs you can buy a copy of Restless Land, the book Roz wrote with Alan McCombes in 2014.

The book looks at Scotland’s radical history as it grappled with the independence debate leading up to the referendum.

They have a limited edition run of 200 copies signed by Roz and Alan, and are asking for a donation of £25 (or more) for each copy, which will cover p&p, with the rest (more than £20) going directly to Roz and her family, supporting their living costs in London.

Yes groups and others can also get discounts on orders of more than five.

You can make a donation and get your signed copy on the restlessland.org website.