My husband did the most courageous thing he has ever done in his life this week. He put his scrotum under the knife.

After waiting just a couple of months, his appointment for a vasectomy came through and he went ahead with the surgery last Monday.

There was no time for looking back, or looking down. As soon as he arrived at the Victoria Hospital in Lewes, he was gowned, anaesthetised, and bidding adieu to his fertility.

When I picked him up from the recovery ward a few hours later, I asked him if it was sad to think he would never see a baby that looked like him again (unless we went in for cloning). He said: "No."

I wondered if he had secretly donated sperm to a sperm bank...just in case. He said: "No."

I aired my concerns that this might affect him psychologically more than he had expected. He said: "No."

In that case, I said, he needed only the statutory amount of sympathy as befits a minor operation.

"Noooo," he moaned.

"It can't be that bad," I said. "Have you looked at what's been done?"

"No."

"Shall I take a look?"

"NO."

I was beginning to wonder if severing the vas deferens also affected the speech area of the brain. After all, there has been a lot of speculation about where men's thought processes originate.

But my husband then said a full sentence. "I am, as it happens, in some pain. It's not unmanageable, but I may need a bit of rest and support."

"I'll let your pants do that," I said. "I'll just relieve you of housework and childcare for the next two days."

Unfortunately, that afternoon I was gripped by a virus that rapidly made me achey, sore-throaty, grumpy and confined me to bed.

"Oh, good timing," said my husband, obviously thinking I was putting on my illness.

So I took my temperature and showed him the thermometer.

"A hundred and one point four. You don't even look sweaty."

"But I'm clearly ill." I said, in little more than a whisper. "Looks like you'll have to pick up the children."

"I can't," he said. "You know I'm not supposed to drive for another 48 hours and the last thing I want right now is the kids jumping all over me."

So I was the one that had to drag my shivering limbs out into the cold night air. Somehow or other we both managed to get the kids fed, bathed and into bed.

The next morning, while I was still suffering, my husband developed symptoms of the virus too.

"Now everything hurts," he whimpered, as he waddled. So we spent the day downing Panadol, drifting in and out of disturbed sleep and browsing through Bedrooms, Bathrooms and Kitchens magazine.

The next day, having had strange, feverish dreams all night, we continued the experience with a trip to the cinema to see The Two Towers. I'm not normally a fan of Tolkien, but I would recommend a dose of it when you have a high temperature. It almost seems normal.

By the evening, I was feeling no better and I was aware that I had a deadline looming.

"Do you fancy writing my Home Truths column this week?" I said, turning to my pale and wan husband.

"Sorry darling?" He replied. " I'm having enough problems with my own column."