Going to hospital today for only the third time in 83 years.

 Today will be my third experience of being an inpatient in hospital. The first occasion was when I was about 3 months old in March 1943 for my circumcision. Because of WW2 - there wasn’t space at my local hospital, so the operation was consequently delayed. My mother always said subsequently - ‘I went in a bonny happy baby, but came home sad and distressed’. Under normal circumstances and in particular in the Jewish faith a boy is circumcised at 8 days old. Thereby minimising the unconscious memory of the trauma. The second occasion was for a minor operation for Dupuytren contracture and it went catastrophically wrong and eventually I had the little finger on my right hand amputated and was in hospital for many weeks. The finger had gone gangrenous due to a failure of a doctor, not the surgeon. I decided to go privately, thinking it would save time and at my convenience. How wrong can you be? Moreover the surgeon was an eminent specialist Orthopaedic surgeon at a recommended private hospital in St John’s Wood, London. So today - hopefully things will be - more successful and not as catastrophic as my two other visits have been. Today is for Laser therapy for my enlarged prostate. No wonder I feel anxious.