In 30 minutes I go down for brain surgery - awake brain surgery - to try and cure me of the epilepsy which has plagued my life since I was 19.
The odds aren't great. As my psych here tells me, the price you pay to enter the casino of neuro-surgery is uncertainty. I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.
But what I do know is that as it stands, one day my epilepsy will get the better of me. And I am not prepared to sit around and wait for that day to come.
My children are 11, 10 and 7. I've waited. Waited until I feel they are old enough to be brave and smart enough to remember the things I want them to know.
Like why girls are weird and why our most important job as a family is to stick together. How we are all different, but fitting in doesn't make better than the rest. Or how we need to laugh every day, because nothing matters so much that it can't be funny.
Why you should never stand too close to people at cashpoints or be afraid to talk to the drunk man up the road.
He has wisdom and is not afraid to share it.
That verrucas eventually go away on their own and you never need to wear a weird white sock and look like a plonker. And why learning your spelling for homework is really important but that learning what those words mean matters more.
And even if you can trick Grandma into thinking you have cleaned your teeth, you can't trick the dentist and he's the one with the pliers.
You see, the beautiful thing about brain surgery is it gives you hope and perspective. Hope that things may be better. Perspective that most things in life don't matter so much at all.
Standing on the high wire suspended between life and death, in the hands of the surgical gods, the problems of the world actually look quite small.
I have a team of four surgeons, a jolly anesthetist who tells me I will definitely be asleep until I need to be awake, and some nurses who are going to put a catheter in as I sleep.
I give them my thanks in advance and I am sorry I was never one for a wax.....
There are ten of them in all. Scrubbed. Blue. Friendly. Sterile.
There are risks of course. Risks of weakness on my left hand and left leg. But the team have programmed this into the software to mitigate these risks as they mine deep for the lesion in my head.
The other risks come hand in hand with digging deep into my brain and cutting out the bit of me which I have always seen as a weakness, the thing I hid because I never wanted to be judged as less than the rest.
The thing which saw me slung out of the army after completing the Commissioning Course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and the reason why my arms have dislocated 42 times in three years.
I always wanted to be the first female General. But I understand an epileptic with a rifle was never my finest idea.
But I am grateful. Because so often in life, it is our weakness which make us tougher than the rest.
The beautiful thing about brain surgery is it gives you hope and perspective. Hope that things may be better. Perspective that most things in life don't matter so much at all
If you can make it through and live a normal life - when your life is anything but normal - then you are winning every day.
Some of you will say it is Karma. It is not. It is epilepsy and I suggest you steer clear of the medical profession because your diagnosis is decidedly off.
I will have my head shaved, spend four to eight hours in theatre, and then 24 hours in intensive care.
But if the alternative is a life where someone can turn my lights out without warning at any time, then I am gambling to take back control of that switch.
My children don't want me to have an operation because they are scared for me. But I have said to them all: Don't be scared for me. I am not scared. I have lived a happy life, made complete by the three of you.
I am lucky. I wake up every day feeling glad to be alive. And that is a gift not everyone has been given.
I don't regret a single thing. Because when your life could be short you need to live it loud. And there is no time to waste looking back when there may not be a long time to look forward to.
My children, your mum loves you.
Wherever you are, I will always be just next door.
I will see you on the other side.
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