“You should count your blessings, Alex.”

It was early Sunday evening and I’d just gotten back from the farm, and was sitting in Gram’s living room with a cup of cocoa and a plate of cookies.

“Easy for you to say,” I mumbled with a mouthful of Pecan Sandies.

“Oh, Alex,” Gram scolded, “with all you’ve been through, this is just a little bump in the road.”

She was right, of course. Since Saturday evening, everyone at the farm had been trying to convince me to go ahead with the Florida trip, but so far, I wasn’t convinced.

I had a long discussion with Bob about the issue and finally confessed my fears about mental illness. He thought that if it was indeed a panic attack, that it could probably be controlled with medication. That just depressed me further, because I thought that I was finished with all those drugs. Before I literally outgrew it, I was taking some twenty pills a day, just to be functional. Not having to take them anymore was extremely satisfying. It reminded me of the old bible verse and the scales fell from my eyes.

In the meantime, I’d just have to hope that the lab results came back with some kind of useful information.

“It was all just so frighteningly real,” I told Gram.

“That doesn’t surprise me, dear,” she said. “You remember when I had my hip replacement?”

“Yeah.”

“I had the most dreadful hallucinations afterward from the anesthetic. I thought there were strangers prowling around my room.”

“That’s creepy,” I said.

“It certainly was. But they went away.”

“But I don’t think that’s really the same, Gram,” I said.

“Well, the point is that once I recognized what was happening, I wasn’t afraid anymore. It’ll be the same for you.”

“I hope so.”