I’ve always had an overactive imagination. It was fun when I was a kid and I could live in the Land of Oz. It’s not so fun now when I’m waiting for my monthly test results.

Things were much worse in the olden days (2005), when I was first diagnosed with smoldering multiple myeloma. I’d never had a serious illness before, so I had very little experience with doctors outside of a regular checkup. I didn’t really understand how doctors’ offices worked. When the doctor would tell me, “I will call you tomorrow with your test results,” I would foolishly interpret this to mean that he would call me the next day with my test results.

Now I know that what he really meant was, “Wait a couple of days and then leave a voicemail with a nurse, and she’ll call you right back with the test results.”

It took me a while time to figure this out. Until I did, I would wait and wait and wait and wait for the Big Phone Call. As more time went by, I would start to imagine that my results were so horrible that the doctor couldn’t bring himself to tell me.

After a while, I’d begin to imagine a dramatic scene from a black-and-white 1940s movie starring Jimmy Stewart as my doctor and Maureen O'Hara as his beautiful but tough-as-nails nurse.

DOCTOR: I can't bring myself to tell that poor sweet kid that she is dying! I just can't do it, I tell you! I can't! I can't! (Begins angrily smashing test tubes)

NURSE: But Frank, you have to tell her. If you don't, then you're ... you're just not the man I thought you were ... (dramatic pause) ... and I could never marry you.

DOCTOR: What are you saying, Vivian?

NURSE: I've always loved you, Frank.

DOCTOR: I've always loved you, Vivian!

(The music swells. They kiss. THE END)

And even after all that, Jimmy Stewart still didn’t call me. I guess he ran off to Vegas with Vivian.

I was happy for them, but I still wanted my test results.

Finally, I’d break down and call a nurse, and she’d give me the test results, and everything would usually be all right. I’d stay fairly calm until the next month, when the movie would start running in my head again.

I think it could’ve been a hit. I called it “Passion Among the Plasma Cells.”

Finally, I settled into a routine. I’d call the nurse and leave a voicemail, and she’d call right back – almost always by the end of the day, sometimes within a few minutes. It left very little time for me to imagine terrible things.

Don’t get me wrong: I still did imagine terrible things. I just didn’t spend quite as much time on it.

In recent months, my doctor’s office has become fully computerized. When I checked out after my appoint­ment earlier this month, I was given a password and instructions about how to set up an account so I could check my test results online.

Score! No more waiting for anyone to call me back! I could check my results in the middle of the night if I wanted to! Better yet, I could re-check them obsessively all month long! This is a system that’s made for me!

I soon got an e-mail letting me know that my test results were ready. I logged in and checked them, only to find that my most important result, my M-spike result, was missing.

Instead of coming to a logical conclusion – there’s been a computer glitch or a lab glitch or the test simply hasn’t been posted yet – I immediately assumed that my M-spike was so high it couldn’t be posted online. Perhaps it was so high it made the main computer explode.

I imagined the nurses down at the cancer center aiming fire extinguishers at the flaming computers, cursing my name over the screaming fire alarm, wondering why they ever thought they could enter a number so large into the system.

I took a deep breath and called the nurse, hoping she wasn’t on the other line with the fire department or, worse, sifting through charred rubble trying to find the phone. She wasn’t. The test just wasn’t back yet. It arrived the next day, and everything was stable.

The smell of smoke disappeared, and the screams died down. I took a deep breath and promised myself, once again, that I will not start imagining the worst next month.

Still, I think I’ll keep a fire extinguisher handy, just in case.