The Power of Suggestion

This was one of my mom’s favorite stories about something that I did. She would always say, “tell them the one about The Limp everytime I met one of her friends. She would say “this is my daughter LeeAnn..She’s a handful. She has the funniest things happen to her.” So here it is. True story. May be one of those had to be there things. Certainly says something about the power of suggestion.


Are you limping? Her co-worker asked. Whats wrong with your leg. Was I? she asked. She didn’t notice that she had been limping. Just feeling a little queasy she said. When she got up later to go to the restroom she noticed that she was limping. But her leg didn’t hurt. That was weird . Later when she went to lunch one of her male co-workers called out to her as she walked to her car “what’d you do to you leg? Not sure, she yelled back. Why am I limping?, she thought but her priority was to get home for a quick 30 minute nap before returning to work. She got home, set the alarm for 30 minutes, laid down on the bed and fell asleep. When she arrived back at work she limped into her office. All day long she limped here and limped there. She began to imagine that her leg hurt. Why else would she be limping? Later, when 5 o’clock finally arrived she said goodbye to her co-workers and walked to her car. “Hope your leg gets better” yelled, the co worker who had called out to her at lunchtime. Thanks she said. I hope so too. She arrived home. Sat on the couch and took off her shoes. And laughed. For then she saw that the heel of one shoe had been chewed off and was about an inch shorter than the other. Her dog had evidently snacked on her shoe. She couldn’t believe that she was so stressed out, so focused on a million other things that she had gone all day thinking her leg was injured when in fact it was a chewed off shoe. How could you not notice something like that? The next day at work her co-worker said “hey your leg is better” . It is, she replied. If you only knew.