Shouting about wanting a cup of coffee, shouting about wanting to phone his brother in Australia, shouting about anything and everything, a man lay naked on his crisp white bedsheets so if I looked forwards I could see everything. Next to him was someone who just wanted to know how long he had left in the hospital because he wanted to get home in time for his wife’s birthday party. The staff misheard his question and called for the palliative care doctor who told him he might last a year. It was lunchtime, we were all eating a fairly watery tomato soup.

Feeling more like a contemporary art installation than reality, on the right hand side I could see a man’s catheter bag slowly filling up with urine. I think he’d had some kind of a fall. There was a burglar who had broken his leg in several places while being chased by a security guard on “one last job” while awaiting sentencing for some other crimes. He and his girlfriend knew they wouldn’t see each other for a bit so she would bring vodka in for evening visiting time and stay until around 11pm. The nurses did their best to get her to leave but she never did until she’d got what she came for.

With a prison mentality, but without the riot aspect because no-one could stand up very well let alone walk far, I got everyone involved in my requests to have curry goat from the so-called ethnic menu. All I was allowed was bland British food.

It was my first proper experience of being on a physical health NHS ward surrounded by other men. (I’m not counting my stay when I had meningitis two years ago because I was mostly in an isolation unit back then.)

All of these amazing experiences took place around a month after I’d been diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer and I was in hospital to recover from an operation.

And now as I wonder whether I’ll be back at the same hospital in a few months’ time for another op I’m trying to prepare myself for more hellish encounters.

There is a high chance that there won’t be any because this time the surgeons would probably prefer not to operate on me.

They say if they do repair my abdominal wall repair and fix my hernia then there are risks of infection and risks of my cancer spreading, as chemotherapy will have to be stopped if it takes place. There are also risks that the operation simply will not work and they won’t be able to fit my lower intestine back where it should go.

These are obviously massive risks and I’ve thought a lot about them. I think they will become more of a concern to me if the surgeons agree to do the operation and I’m given a date when they’ll chop me up and jiggle my insides around a bit.

Then it will become real — the reality of weeks of pain after surgery.

But for now my mind is firmly on thinking about how I’m going to cope if there is another naked man shouting, constant machines beeping, and terminally ill patients who don’t actually want to know how long they’ve got left.

I get annoyed when people play videos on their phone on buses without headphones and have conversations on loudspeaker while on trams so I don’t fancy my chances of being on a ward for several weeks.

It’s the mental wellbeing side of an operation that just isn’t thought about by the NHS. But it should be.

Many cancer patients will be operated on this week, next week, and the weeks to come, with tumours cut out and bits of bodies changed. They will be facing a different future and their medical teams should help them to discuss how they are feeling about this.

This is why one of the main calls for the Daily Express Cancer Care campaign is for patient’s doctors to ask them about their mental health during their regular consultations. It’s crucial that everyone fighting cancer gets mental health support both during and after treatment.