The information about the Gamma Knife procedure arrived over the following days, and the whole thing began to feel increasingly surreal.
Sheffield's own hospital couldn't accommodate the procedure in their schedule. When that happens, the treatment is outsourced to a private clinic on the outskirts of the city — Thornbury Hospital. Because the procedure would begin at seven in the morning, the hospital would arrange for us to stay in a hotel the night before. The hotel, as it turned out, had a pool and a spa.
I want to be clear that I was about to have brain surgery. And they were putting me up in a spa hotel.
We arranged sleepovers for Flo and Albert on the school night — they weren't thrilled, but they understood. I'd found a restaurant near the hotel called Nonnas, an Italian place on Ecclesall Road that came very highly recommended. We booked a table for the evening before the procedure.
The drive to Sheffield felt strange. The check-in felt strange. Getting changed and heading out for dinner with my wife the night before Gamma Knife radiosurgery felt, genuinely, slightly like going on a small holiday. I'm not sure I can fully explain it. It was real — completely, unavoidably real — and yet there was something almost peaceful about it too. A hotel room. A nice restaurant. Lucy across the table. The chaos of the preceding weeks reduced, briefly, to just the two of us having dinner in Sheffield.
Nonnas was everything I'd hoped for. The food was outstanding — proper Italian, warm atmosphere, attentive service. We ate well, we talked, and we didn't spend the whole evening discussing what was happening the next morning. We didn't need to. We both knew. There was something to be said for just sitting there and being two people having a lovely meal together, without the weight of it crushing everything else.
We walked back to the hotel, went to bed at a reasonable hour, and tried to sleep.
I felt, quietly, as ready as I was ever going to be.
