It’s Monday and I’m back at work for the first time since finding out. I have questions about this: would I be able to do any work? Has my concentration gone? I needn’t have worried as I’m one of those lucky souls who loves his job.

I start with the usual Monday morning meeting, which for me is a video hangout with the rest of the EMEA drivers team. We’re a diverse bunch, based across Europe and its good to catch up and get some normality back.

As I was going to be sitting in a hospital for a long time, I needed some offline work to get on with. Happily, it was the start of a new programming course I’d signed up for on Coursera ( if you haven’t checked out Coursera do – there’s awesome free online courses on all manner of subjects). So I downloaded this weeks lectures and assignments to keep me busy at the hospital.

The drive is nice, although annoyingly there’s a love of speed bumps on hills near Harpenden. The Spire hospital is really nice, staff friendly and as in common with all hospitals time moves at a different pace. We arrive on time for 12pm but Julia’s surgery didn’t take place until after 3pm.

I manage to grab some crisps and chocolate for lunch, Julia is annoyed because she is nil by mouth. She gets her own back later by having dinner post op, something I missed out on. In fact she practically rubs my nose in it by making me see it twice - bleurgh.

Julia’s operation goes well but she comes out looking green gilled. So much so one doctor practically panics when he sees her and has to be “shooed” out the room by a nurse. A quick red cell count and blood pressure check determines her fit, although nauseous from the anesthetic and operation.

It takes some time to persuade them to discharge her, they would have preferred her to stay in but there’s no place like home and as the anesthetist joked you can just as easily feel nauseous there!

Clair was great looking after the kids - thank you and we finally made it home for 10pm. Julia celebrates by being sick again and I get her to bed. She has nothing to worry about tomorrow and can stay in bed resting all day. All of which doesn’t explain why she woke me up at 4:30am by trying to read her iPad under the covers! I may have swore but this is how things are now, suddenly you go from fast asleep to wide awake for no apparent reason.

Fingers crossed they don’t find anything - we’ll find out next Tuesday.