Waiting to Exhale

And with all the distracting hoop-lah, two weeks had passed. My test results from the The Little Shop of Horrors should be in. They had said two weeks. To prevent myself from hyperventilating I told myself that "two weeks" was probably like the "40 weeks" one's pregnancy is anticipated to last . No one knows for sure. It is a guesstimate at best. Days and weeks on either side were an accepted window.

Except if you are the one waiting.

I busy myself at work. I have plenty to focus upon. Projects, problems, process improvements. And the moment I leave my desk, it happens. I get a call from Robin, the medical assistant that held my hand through the plowing, irrigation and harvesting two weeks earlier. She leaves a message asking simply that I call back. Here we go again.

I call back immediately and leave a message.

And then for the next 2 hours I refuse to leave my desk for fear that the moment I go get hot water for my chamomile tea to calm my jangling nerve endings, Robin will call back. That is routinely the way my cookie crumbles.

One of my team calls from her office. "Do you have a minute to go over something?"

My normal response would be to say, "Sure. Stay put, I'll be over. Want some coffee while I'm on my way?"

But instead, I say, faster than usual so as to not stay on the line, "Yes, but I'm wigging out, and I'd come tell you why but I can't leave my office." She and I have worked together for years. Have born witness to each other's divorces, marriages, new baby's, break ups, family feuds. She knows exactly when I am sending up a flare. This is clearly one of those times.

She appears in my office within seconds and closes the door. "What gives?" Her eyes are darting around the room for signs of trouble. Suspicious packages. Subpoenas. Unsolicited anonymous gifts. J. sitting in the corner handcuffed to the chair in a last ditch act of obsession.

I tell her about Robin's message. She asks if I've called back. I reply that I have...3 times in the last hour. But I've only left one message so as to not appear to be a nut. Even though I am beginning to secretly suspect that I am.

She makes a few suggestions about getting through. Even one that includes just appearing in the office two floor below us and insisting that I get an audience with the doctor or I won't leave. I promise to keep her posted.

For the next two hours I obsessively call back. Leave messages. Dial every direct line in the practice. Leave increasingly more desperate sounding messages. As I rise to leave my office and take the stairs two at a time to the office 30 feet below me, My phone rings.

Robin. The moment of truth.