The Run Up to THE DAY

So, having been away in France the previous week, I had come back to earth with a resounding bump; yes, I'm on leave from work, but being away on what to all intents and purposes had been a 'school trip' for me (but was actually a 'working' tour round Brittany with the Choir), I was feeling quite anti-climactical (is that a word) about being back at home - hold that thought.
C, about whose kidney I am writing this blog, is my husband of almost 21 years - aged 54, semi retired, active, restless, always been in good health and robustness - has had a few health problems over the last 18 months or so and feeling generally 'under the weather', but nothing other than niggly complaints during this time really, certainly nothing to make him go rushing to the doctors in a panic (attention seeking, I thought, as men can be when 'ill'....) - until a visit to the loo last month when what should have been a nice pale 'straw colour' (as the docs always describe a nice healthy urine colour - personally I've never thought of straw as pale; it's just, well, straw colour surely?) was laced with spots of red.  "Kidney stones" said the doctor, and prescribed painkillers, lots of water and plenty of rest.  I took shameful delight in his discomfort at that point, reminding him that this was a mild case of what I had been through when I had our daughter 18 years previously! This soon passed (no pun intended; oh go on then, yes there is) and he then noticed a discomfort in his right side - now, he's had a cough for 18 months, just had kidney stones, and is a bloke, so I thought no more of it and assumed it was all psychosomatic and a touch of hypochondria...well you would, wouldn't you?  However, given that he's also had a touch of what the doc called 'secondary varicocele' (which is a posh way of saying one of his nadgers has been swelling up) he was sent for a CAT scan to give more info that a previous ultrasound hadn't provided.  And hence me mentioning being in France, because that happened while I was away.....
Follow up appointment was arranged for Thursday 12 August; I duly arrived home on Sunday 8, unpacked, got fed up, withdrawal from being away and with lovely creative musical singing people all week...you get the picture?  Wallowing in self pity over something I now see as SO minor.....
And so that's the background....