Friday morning. This afternoon, I’m heading into hospital for up to 10 nights. Sister Briodie mentioned, almost in passing, that I will need front-opening pyjamas. After the operation it will be hard to manage clothes that need pulling over one’s head.

It’s not just the big questions doctors don’t answer: will I live, will the lump come back? There’s the small stuff too - so paltry nobody addresses it, least of all breast cancer consultants. Like, what in hell do you wear when they take away one of your breasts?

I don’t have a 10-day-in-hospital wardrobe. I don’t even maintain an overnight-in-hospital outfit. In fact, I don’t run to a dressing gown. So I’m chasing round Brent Cross, looking for front-opening pyjamas, then for front-opening anything. All the pyjamas are like the ones I own already - T-shirt/sweat-shirt tops. The front-opening nightdresses are maternity provender in Mothercare, and I’m starting to think that’s what I’ll be packing for the mastectomy.

Averting my eyes from bras, I brush past something soft in Marks & Spencer’s: silk pyjamas, steel-girder grey, and blush-red - easy trousers, and button-down shirts. In a flamboyant going-to-hospital flourish, I take two pairs of each.

Tonight is Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. The children finish school early, and, as it happens, all appear at once, about 3pm - even Max and Laura, who don’t go to school any more. My daughters bring a hospital-survival box, packed with card-tricks, tiny lavender toiletries, and a hand-stitched book they made themselves of family photos and captions they’ve written. Anthony hands over Sidney Blumenthal’s book on the Clintons - pocket West Wing. I also take a picture my son has drawn, titled “Mummy, I Love You”, photos from our trip to Israel, and some prints we’ve had done of the children. My neighbour Angela has left a glass bottle of aromatherapy sticks. The downside of private health care is you miss out on the ward camaraderie; but this is the upside; you get to make your room your own.

We drive round the corner to the Garden Hospital. There’s less panoply involved than flying abroad. Yesterday, I had the phonecall saying the operation would be at 5.30; today, I phone to ask when I need to turn up, and the secretary says, vaguely, “Oh, about 4pm, I guess.”

The nurse has props. “Ha, ha, these are really sexy,” she chuckles, unfurling a pair of immensely heavy, tightly woven stockings. We inch these up and along my legs - super-elastic structures to stop blood-clots forming. Gaping hospital gown and two stiff, white legs stretched straight out in front of me, my top half flopped on two huge hospital pillows, like a giant marionette.

Then the anaesthetist appears, settling down in an armchair to run through his repertoire. “Any tooth crowns, ha, ha!” he chortles. “Ah, well, any piercings I can’t see, tee hee!” I can choose how to launch the anaesthesia - insert a suppository myself, or have someone help. I say I’ll do it, and spend the next 45 minutes absolutely sure that it’s slipped out and won’t do the trick.

Mr al-Dubaisi reads a document of consent to me. “Your husband, the lawyer, will tell you we have to do this,” his gentle attempt at a joke, but he’s upset for me, his voice is unsteady. “The purpose of treatment is removal, and staging,” he reads out. Staging? “Yes, we send the tumour off to find out what is in it.”

He asks me to sign and I do, trying to decide what surname I use for operations - married, or single. Turns out it’s single. Mr al-Dubaisi makes a felt-tip cross over my right breast. “Now, which side is it again?” he says, the requisite gag.

The nurse reappears to walk us down to the theatre, all very casual, no being portered down on trolleys. From the Gambia, she easily puts her arms round me, and doesn’t seem to feel the need to crack any jokes at all. “You must be strong for her,” she says to Anthony, because we are both crying now.

Anthony’s going home to make Friday-night dinner for the children. Myrna, Anthony’s mum, is there too. My daughters are at their father’s. I’m anxious for Anthony to get back to the children, to make Friday night normal. He leaves at the door to the operating theatre, and I stroll on in.

More jokes, as they usher me on to the bed. “It’s freezing,” I say. “Yup, we’re the Eskimo brigade in here.” Then another round of the “which side are we doing again?” joshing, and “do you feel woozy yet?”. “No, no I really don’t.” “Should we get the good stuff out for her? OK, then.”

• This column appears fortnightly.

• 18 March 2021: this article has been edited to remove some personal information.