April 2019. London Heathrow Airport, Terminal 5, arrivals side. We trundle our hand luggage along the interminable corridors, always following the signs to UK Border Controls: Passports, then look for the channel for All Other Passports. The queue is not huge but there is no sign of movement – not surprising given that more than half the passport control booths are unmanned. Passengers are mostly quiet and expressionless, resigned to the lengthy process, the dull wait before the stressful double-checking of documents and the banality of the repeated questions.

As we step into the maze of barriers policing the lines of the queues, a uniformed official approaches us. Perhaps she has spotted our blue and gold Afghan passports. She asks us a few questions, and we explain our circumstances. Her expression changes, and she asks us to follow her to a priority queue.

‘You should expect to get through in about 45 minutes,’ she smiles. Was there a faint hint of apology in that smile? I wonder.

Ibrahim touches me gently on the arm.

‘Are you sure you’re going to be OK?’

‘Yes, I think I can stand for that long.’

He is concerned because I am eight months pregnant, and in an ideal world wouldn’t be risking air travel. But I had set my heart on attending the conference in Milan. My project – the project – had been ready for its international launch, and I knew that everyone who was anyone would be at the annual symposium of the European Society of Radiotherapy and Oncology. To be honest, even now I’m glowing from the impact of the presentation; the attention and encouragement it attracted from the other delegates; the media coverage.

But pregnancy was not the only jeopardy in my travelling abroad. I had been diagnosed several months earlier with breast cancer. At one point it looked inevitable that the pregnancy would have to be terminated, but miraculously a way of saving the baby’s life had been found. Even so, I have had surgery, and flew out in the interval of a course of chemotherapy. We had gone knowing full well that I was likely to give birth early, because of the hormone imbalances in the body from the illness and its treatment. So the trip to Italy had been... I don’t like to say ‘a gamble’, but I’m not sure what else you could call it. I remember while we were in Italy saying, over and over, to the little creature inside me: ‘Please, don’t be born here!’

And now I’m so happy that my voice was heard.

We are approaching the head of the queue when Ibrahim touches my arm again. He points up at the huge video display above the passport booths. I glance up, and have the surreal experience of seeing myself looking back at me from the screen. The video presentation is promoting the UK as a welcoming place for researchers and innovators, and here I am, an Afghan woman, telling the world how my discovery in the field of radiation science led to me winning the Women in Innovation UK Award.

At that moment we are called forward to passport control.The immigration officer flicks through my passport and asks what I do for a living. ‘Clinical scientist,’ I tell him. ‘Oh, and innovator, too. Look. That’s me up there – that’s my video showing above your head!’

He looks up, looks back at me, smiles briefly, and reaches for his official stamp. I have never got through passport control so quickly in my life.