That was scary

I had a mildly terrifying experience this week.  I arrived home from work Monday to discover three telephone messages that were NOT from telemarketers.  That wasn't the scary part but it wasn't a bright spot either.  One message was from a nurse at the clinic where I recently had my annual screening mammogram.  Two were from the hospital telling me I needed to schedule a follow up diagnostic mammogram.

Bottom line, end of the story.  I'm fine it was just a glitch in the film.

Back to the terror.  I scheduled the appointment for Thursday.  And I spent four days wondering if, just when we are beginning to relax about cancer around here, it was my turn.  I am not one of those people who could just wait and see what happens for four days.  In my mind, I have to go through all the possible terrible outcomes all the way to the bitter finish of the story.  You know, the bitter finish in which I was "gone" and PC was left to finish raising our kids alone.  Its just how my mind works.  There is a technical term for it but it wasn't a psych major and I would have to look it up on Google.  My good friend Lawyer Mama was a psych major and she knows the term.  We've discussed it.

Beyond the terror.  Its not the fourth Thursday in November but I am very thankful for many things in my life that I don't always take the time to appreciate.  Here's a partial list:

• PC, the good and the bad, I would only have a shell of a life, would only be a shell of a person, without him.  
• The sweet snuggly body of our nearly five year old Pumpkin nearly pushing me off the edge of the bed nearly every night and the great little person who he is
• My grown sons (who, they read this, will be very irritated at being combined instead of each getting their own sentence); they drive me crazy but I love them just as much as I did when they were sweet and snuggly
• My extended family on the other edge of the continent, I don't talk to them much, I see them even less, but I'm glad they're there when the opportunity arises
• PC's extended family.  After nearly 20 years they're my family too. 
• The time and place I was born (you may place your right hand over your heart ready begin, because really, I'm so lucky)
• My friends, I suck at keeping in touch but that doesn't mean I don't fully appreciate the ability to pick up the phone after days or weeks or months and pick up just where we left off the last conversation

I appreciate lots of things too (my iPhone, my fabulous fabric stash, televisions, laptops, etc.) but I could manage without them.  That seems so obvious when you look at it from this perspective but I'm glad I sat in the mammography suite, waiting for the radiologist to read my films, and thought about it.  Now if I can only remember it every day I'll probably be a lot more cheerful.