The problem with {my crazy} Imagination

May 29, 2014Find joy today

If you are blessed/cursed like me, you have an active imagination. This can be good when you’re writing novels and creating storyworlds. But it has its dark side. (Cue Darth Vader music).

And for me, this always means cancer.

So I checked my voice mail, something I do about every three months on our home phone. As predicted, there were several political campaign ads, a few floor cleaning pleas (we must have dirty floors), and only two important messages. (Oops). One was from the place that did my mammogram, and it instructed me to call them back.

On my run that morning, I speculated.

And this is where my imagination took me.

I listened to the receptionist tell me I had to come in for an ultrasound because they saw icky stuff. I experienced the biopsy, holding a friend’s hand. I saw myself receiving the news that I had cancer. I wondered, then, how I would tell people. So then I imagined what my surgery would be like, and that I would have tubes coming out of me (drains) and would I be able to fly to Seattle for vacation? Then I remembered a dear friend who died from cancer this year, and I vowed to be brave and awesome like she was. I pictured saying goodbye to everyone, and saying something like, “I lived more in this past six months than I have lived my entire life.”

When I arrived home from my run, my nerves were in a bundle of yikes.

I dialed the phone, expecting the nice lady to tell me I needed to make my ultrasound appointment, only to hear her say, “Oh, that message was just a reminder that you had the mammogram in the first place. You’re fine. Just disregard it.”

I put the phone down, then laughed, laughed, laughed. My imagination took me to my deathbed in six months. Reality was simply a reminder of an appointment. Oh dear!

Maybe I’m the only one like this?

Have you ever had a crazy moment like that when your imagination ran amuck? Please tell me I’m not alone!

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