They sometimes call it the "invisible illness". Hah! Not for me, it's not!

I've spent most of today (apart from the blessed hours when I was alone) with people asking "are you alright?" That's the problem with having an expressive face!

The truthful answer, today, is "No! I'm not alright! Tomorrow I'm in hospital, having, what is to the surgeons, a no doubt absolutely routine operation. It's not routine for me!

I'm going to be out of control; I'm going to have people I don't know poking and prodding about inside me and afterwards I'm going to be stiff and sore and I've booked myself out of work for a month which I hate because I absolutely love my job – and if I'm not working then I'm not earning either!"

(Deep breath here.)

Not surprisingly, this morning's Moodscope score was significantly less than normal. But today hasn't been all bad.

Last week a dear friend phoned to say that she had been let down by the person who was going to make her son's 21st birthday cake and could I possibly?... Well, absolutely, of course I could. So quite a lot of today has been taken up with the totally absorbing task of creating the perfect cake for her musical son.

An email from my therapist reminded me that I am only as stressed about this as I choose to be; I have tools to deal with it.

So the more truthful answer is "Yes, I am absolutely fine. I've got some stuff to cope with, and I'd appreciate your support, but it's OK and I've got it handled."

That's a far more positive way of dealing with this situation, don't you think?