I was sent off for the biopsy at about 10 o’clock. And then I was in this sort of waiting room — the recovery room. There were at least four or five people recovering from biopsies. Each one was given a sandwich and some tea and then off they went.

In terms of me, I was just… waiting. It turned out I wasn’t going to go early, so I was in the recovery room for about two hours, basically reading my file, trying to get familiar with the vocabulary that these people use.

Hospitals have their own vocabulary. And you can’t understand what’s going on unless you get the acronyms… and the words. So, I was really just trying to work out what everything meant.

As far as I was concerned, I was going for an endoscopic ultrasound with a little needle that would also take biopsies from the side of my very large tumour. So, they could find out exactly what the thing was. What kind of cancer it was.

Obviously, cancer is a massive field. There are hundreds and hundreds of types — all of them treated differently. Again, completely new to me. I hadn’t been to a hospital in 30 years. And that time, it was just for an ovarian cyst removal when I was much, much younger. I wasn’t part of this oncology world. I really wasn’t.

My recollections of the day were dominated by an absolutely charming recovery nurse. She’d been in working in the theatre and recovery ward for 27 years. She knew what she was doing. Portuguese first language. Probably from Mozambique originally.

As an aside, I have a dear cousin who grew up with me in Zimbabwe. He married a really smart Mozambique-born girl he met at the University of Cape Town.

Having retired to the Cintra area north of Lisbon, they complain that to get to South Africa they have to fly Lisbon via Frankfort or London to Johannesburg. So, I was quite interested to hear this nurse say that the cheapest way to get to Lisbon is via Angola! She flies Johannesburg–Luanda, then Luanda–Lisbon. What a good idea which will shake the socks off my cousin!”

Anyway, I listened to her for a couple of hours as she moved from patient to patient, basically running the recovery room with huge competence, huge empathy, and military precision.

She marched around like a general.  “I feel very comfortable under your leadership.” I thought.

I’m a journalist, so I’d checked out the website. I knew all the faces. I’d seen the heroes of this hospital — the top names they put forward. And yes, one of the guys in blue scrubs came across to brief me on the process of the biopsy. He said, “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, I’ve seen your picture on the web”, I said.

He was on the back foot! But he continued to be professional and explained the procedure.

I believe it became a bit of a running joke that I thought he was a good-looking chap. Which, of course, he was — as well as him being a highly qualified surgeon. But I did wonder how many patients arrive having actually screened the website and memorised the doctors’ faces?

I was then wheeled into the theatre. For a split second there was a feeling of commeradarie in the room.  Before I could make the surgeon – feel too important – a very competent anaesthetist put me ‘under’.

And then… I was back. In the recovery room. In what felt like seconds later.

They took me upstairs and monitored me for six or seven hours.

My eldest daughter, Ashley arrived at the hospital to collect me.

By 19h30 we were driving through the inky dark, freezing cold streets of Johannesburg.

Homeward bound.