Living in a Nightmare

Nothing changed. No tests, no discussions with doctors. I assume my internist staff is setting up a CT PET scan as soon as possible as promised.

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I slept well until 4:15 am. Then, I woke up with fresh energy and my imagination hijacked my brain and took me for a ride. I lived into every miserable scenario possible. I fell asleep again, exhausted, at 6:00 and woke up at 6:45 thinking I had a nightmare. I've been there thousands of times as the nightmare vanishes in about 30 seconds and the real world appears with all its previously unnoticed glory.

It took 90 seconds for the nightmare to hold in place and I realize that I am living in a nightmare.

I sleepwalk through two hours of exercise, work conference calls and a haircut. At the end of the day I realize that no one has called me to schedule a test which is critical to determining if I have reasonable prognosis to live or not.

My consulting and facilitating experience kick in. I am going to have to sponsor my own recovery. I am the one with the issue. The urgency is mine. To the medical profession, I am now a case which falls into a triage of priorities. I start making calls and crack all the barriers of automated answering services, live answering services, on-call physicians, and a priority system that put the Christmas parties, shopping, and card sending before the never ending line of customer (patient) needs. I fail. I face another sleepless night.