Thanks so much everyone for your good wishes. I've been relaying them to him and he's very touched that people who don't know him are wishing him well.

Thanks.  At last the call!   They've just rung to say "he's fine" after the op and ready to come home.  The surgeon told me earlier today that the biopsy results will take a few days but they will contact me as soon as possible.  Off to get him now. 

Glad the op's over, Miily.

Sorry I've edited you a bit.

I think I've said all this here before, and I am talking about a long time ago, over 30 years, I suppose, but it was an unforgettable thing. When my elder son was 18 months old, he had to have an operation for an inguinal hernia. I was expected to leave him, and I refused to. I had to fight to stay, and then was treated with scorn by the ward sister, who said I was spoiling him. If wanting to stay with a crying, frightened 18 month old is spoiling, I obviously don't understand the word! She had to give in, but I well remember her comment, "I'm glad I'm not educated!" Oh dear.

Only about five years after that, my younger son was in hospital, and the difference by then was amazing. I could stay as long as I wanted, and it was positively encouraged. The shift in attitudes was the result of lobbying by people like me, by way of an organisation called, I think, the National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital.

As for my own memories of being in hospital in the early days of the NHS, when I was nine - the less said the better, though I think I've probably described it somewhere here already.

We  may complain about modern life, but there have been huge improvements in many ways.

A new rant for the day:

Why is my office so ridiculously overheated? I'm here in shirtsleeves, with the window open, it's still oppressively stuffy and there's bugger all I can do about it. It's OCTOBER, it's OK for the ambient temperature to be little cooler. Don't we have a planet to save or something?

Grrr (not Brrr).

Does he look up if you call "Tombeau"?

Some members may recall that after my landlord went home to Italy without paying the gas bills (or doing anything about the ones he hadn't been paying for quite some time ...) I had no gas for precisely 4 weeks in the summer.

Unlike the water in Ollie's Venetian hotel, the water in this flat is heated not by electricity but by gas.

So I am well familiar with the experience commonly known as the 'cold shower', and can confirm that much of what Ollie says is true (rinsing of limbs, trauma, torso, screams ...). I didn't know about the wet towel trick though. I shall bear this in mind for future occasions.

Memo to Ollie Oz and others:

Baby-wipes..... (Useful thing to have by you for emergency ablutions when only freezing - or indeed, no - water is otherwise available. A couple of sachets can be secreted in a case or overnight bag, and replacements bought almost anywhere. As used by Ron in the Andes, the Cederberg, the Highlands, etc.)