I got the news on Thursday: the lump is not friendly. In the next few months I’m going to have to undergo surgery, chemo and radiotherapy. I wonder if the doctors practice that grave expression in the mirror, I mean, when you have to dish out that kind of news on a regular basis, you must acquire a little bit of distance, you can’t feel it that keenly.

As cancers go it’s not the worst: breast cancer is super common and has benefited from a lot of research. The stats are pretty good - if I caught it in time. Which I’m not yet sure about.

Of course I notified my whole family - wrote them a group email. In the next few hours I realized that the news is harder on the people who love me than it is on me.

Because I’m fine. Really! I’m just as healthy as I was 3 days ago. ‘Asymptomatic’ they call it - you literally have no effect at all. I have a very good chance of making it out. I’m in a country with good and cheap/free healthcare. I’ve got a lot of supports from all sides. I might not feel as sanguine or as positive in a few weeks or months, when I’m missing bits of my anatomy and I’m knocked down by aggressive drugs, but for now, I’m OK.

I read in one of the many, many NHS brochures that people’s first reaction is ‘why me?’. That didn’t really occur to me - statistically, some people are going to be it, and why not me? It strikes me as the reaction of people who have never had anything bad happen to them or their loved ones.

My first feeling is irritation. Some longer-term projects are completely on hold. Financially things are going to be a little bit more interesting to juggle (although work has been great). I want my family, my daughter to be ok, to be happy and carefree - and all I can do for them now is mitigate the fallout.

And sometimes … my heart beats a little too fast. I can tell that those couple of years of meditation are going to come in handy.