A very welcome call

My phone rang just before my alarm was due to go off on Sunday morning and when I saw my friend Mariam's mother's number in Dubai flashing on the screen, my heart leapt into my throat.

Once again it was such a strange time for her to call that I, for a split second, feared the worst - even though I knew that Mariam was well on her way to getting better.

But instead, when I picked up I heard the sweetest sound I have heard in a very long time.

Short of breath and raspy voiced but it was Mariam herself and it was the first time I'd spoken to her since her horrific accident almost two months ago.

After a month in a coma (declared 'brain dead' by the doctors) and then weeks of drifting in and out of sleep, battling a chest infection and generally struggling to regain enough strength to interact with the world around her, words can't even begin to describe the joy and relief of being able to see for myself that she really is on the mend.

And, the fact that she was cracking jokes despite the fact that she was struggling to breathe, was music to my ears!

She still has a long way to go before she can come home, including a trip to London for some physiotherapy, and she has yet to regain her sense of taste but if a loss of flavour is the only permanent damage after everything she's been through then we've lived through a real miracle.

Welcome back little one!