A Speedy Recovery, After A Glimpse Of The Afterlife

God, I'm knackered, and it shows. I've aged ten years in the last week - unlike Dad, who appeared ten years younger by the time I left him in order to return home for a night off. Or, at least, he did until Dinah arrived with her kids to take over from me. Then he didn't look half so full of beans.

"God's sake, Molly," he said. "Don't leave me with them. Damian will be the death of me."

"Seeing as you've just had a pretty thorough MOT," I said, "I don't think that's very likely. And stop calling Jake Damian. Dinah'll hear you."

"Just have a sneaky look underneath his hair before you go," said Dad. "I'm bloody sure you'll find 666 there somewhere."

Honestly, talk about being back to his old self - you'd never believe he's just had a triple heart bypass. The first thing he did when he came round from the operation was to ask how long it'd be before he could fly to Thailand to see his girlfriend. I've never been so embarrassed in my life.

I did feel a bit sorry for him the next morning, though. He looked awfully pale when I arrived at the hospital, so I thought something must have gone wrong during the night.

"What's the matter, Dad?" I said. "You don't look too good today."

"That's because I had a near-death experience," he said. "When I went for a pee."

I couldn't see what that had to do with a heart bypass, unless the surgeon had decided to straighten Dad's willy at the same time, but apparently there was a link, albeit a pretty tangential one.

"Your father decided to walk to the toilet by himself, without asking anyone for help," said the nurse. "Because - apparently - no self-respecting man would use a bedpan. But then when he got there, he became a bit disorientated by the painkillers and had to ring for help."

"I thought I might have died, and that I was in the afterlife," said Dad. "Which was a very disappointing prospect. You'd think Paradise would be better than Thailand, not just some bleak tiled room no bigger than a broom cupboard."

Which must have been very frightening, when you come to think of it; though Dad says it wasn't half as bad as the night before his operation.

"Jee-sus," he said. "That's when I was really scared. I had to ask for Valium to calm me down."

"Well, I told you not to google what the surgeon was going to do to you," I said. "But you wouldn't bloody listen."

Dad muttered something about knowledge being power, though God knows how I managed to refrain from pointing out that, as he was going to be out cold during the operation, it was hardly going to be of any use to anyone that he'd watched the entire procedure on YouTube - even if he had counted exactly how many ribs would have to be broken to get to his heart.

This silver surfing business is a health hazard in itself, as is taking care of those who will insist on doing it and then sharing the results with others - repeatedly, and in butt-clenching detail. If Dad so much as even tries to tell me what was done to him again tomorrow, it'll be me who has the bloody heart attack.