Once it’s gone…

I have been dwelling on the dark side of my brain for about a month now. I recently received some “not good but not necessarily bad” news from my annual physical.

I instantly got the webmd flu. Anything that COULD possibly be wrong… suddenly BECAME wrong. To make matters worse, I was not receiving any answers from the doctor! By this I don’t mean he was beating around the bush, I mean the office wouldn’t answer calls or return messages. This dead end lasts for 2 weeks! 2 weeks without answers. 2 weeks sure that my life was over.

I ended up calling my regular physician, which is kind of a misnomer. I really only see him when something is REALLY wrong. It took 2 more weeks to get in to see him.

In the mean time, I’m trying to plan a funeral, make my peace with God, and imaging what the after life is like. I’m sure that what I have will take me away from what and who I love. I’ve all but made up my mind that the universe just doesn’t care about me. I keep telling myself that I have lived a great life, but big deal! I’m ready to lay down and wait for it.

Moving ahead now in the story(past the part where I come completely unglued in my counselors office about being afraid of my own mortality) to the point where I see my doctor. To his credit, he got things done rather quickly! He also got results of outpatient bloodwork and ultrasound to me in less than 5 hours. I guess I was being persuasive.

All of my tests were normal, except for one, but the abnormal result could be accounted for by a recent sickness. Even my ultrasound showed nothing to be alarmed about.

Now comes another set of emotions! Now I’m beating myself up, not for being weak, but for not living the life my family deserves.

I asked myself: What the hell is your problem?! Good or bad, you have a life! By not living it, by dwelling on bad news, it only takes the small amount of time you have on this earth away from you and those that love you. When you dwell on the bad, when you think the worst before there is a worst to think, you are depriving yourself of the moments that make life worth living.

Now that I know my health is no longer an issue, I realize that I have lost that time. I missed an entire month of memories with my family over something I couldn’t change to begin with! In this time, we could have made a memory that would stay with us the rest of our lives.

While allowing worry to consume me, I lost time that will never come again. In the past this would have meant an endless cycle of guilt and regret. While I know I have another chance to be better. I’ll never get the past back, but I can use it to make things better, not just for me, but for those that I love.

I’m not going to say this is a quick cure, or that it will make it easier the next time, I won’t even say that this thought will be of use to someone going through something similar. What I will say, is that I get it and I’ll always be here to listen. If you need me, let’s take a walk.