The year already ranked among my very worst – then I wound up on a tinsel-draped drip, while my family texted fun photos from the pub

It hadn’t been a vintage year. I was in the middle of a divorce and had turned 30 believing my life was over in the way only a 29-year-old could. Christmas was set to be a nice reprieve from the misery, spending a week with my family and eagerly awaiting the promise of a new year. I felt tentatively hopeful.

Ten days before the holiday, my throat began to hurt. “Tonsilitis!” the doctor said, giving me a prescription for antibiotics. The pain didn’t abate, even after a week, so I dutifully went back for another dose. The pain got worse. On Christmas Eve, with no GP surgeries open, my mum drove me to the local walk-in clinic. A doctor took one look in my mouth and said I had a quinsy (don’t Google this, for the love of God, but it’s basically a throat abscess) and told me to get to the nearest A&E as soon as possible.