Allow Me To Divert Your Attention For A Moment. . .

by Allen Butler

Realtor, Audio Engineer

Author website

SO. What an entirely eventful week. When I’m done here, you may be shaking your head in disbelief, but YOU JUST CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP. Every single thing contained herein is the truth, and all of it has occurred within the last 7 days.

First, on a routine visit to the doctor’s office with my oldest son Hayden, I am informed by the physician that he has a very irregular heartbeat, and needs to be transported to Phoenix Children’s Hospital by ambulance, immediately, for more thorough testing. Of course, there’s an 8 hr line at the hospital for the paediatric cardiologist.  Both of my sons are my absolute LIFE. You can imagine. . .

I’m happy to report that 48 excruciating life-times (hours) after that, my wife and I were informed that my son is fine. An exuberant new doctor made an overly cautious judgement call on a sinus arythmia (A common and harmless irregular heart-beat  caused by. . .breathing; it is especially common in children between the ages of 3 and 6).  Wow. That sucked. Try to settle in for some seriously needed “do-over sleep”.

Second, my cat Jasper, whom my wife and I picked up from the Humane Society in early January of 1990 passed away. This cat was 18 years old. He had been with my wife and I since just a few weeks after we began dating.  I’d never had a cat like this one in my life. He was the most mellow, laid-back, snuggly cat I’ve ever has the pleasure of loving. Here’s me and him a month or so after we got him.  (Don’t laugh at me. I was 18, and I’m fairly certain I was stoned.)

Eighteen years later, here we both are, much older and wiser. (This picture was taken about 4 hours before he breathed his last in my arms.)

About mid-morning today, as I’m burying my cat in the sunny spot under his favorite tree, my mother calls to tell me that my sister, who is 31 years old, and pregnant, has suffered internal bleeding from a tubal pregnancy. The baby is gone, and my sister comes close to death (according to the doctor on staff.) Strangely (to me at least), after her brush with death, and the death of her unborn child, they perfom a surgery, stitch her up, and by late afternoon, she’s on her way home again with a prescription for a mild pain med. Modern medicine never fails to amaze.

Now, about 8:00 this evening (on the SAME DAY, MIND YOU, that I bury my cat, and my sister almost dies), my mother calls me and asks me to look up the location of the nearest hospital or urgent care clinic to where she is currently traveling in her car. Seems she is breaking out in some kind of virulent rash, and she feels like her throat is closing. I direct her to the nearest facility. About an hour later, my sister calls me from the hospital (yes, the same sister, the same hospital) to tell me that apparently, my mother, who had been given an antibiotic by her primary care physician on Friday for some type of infection, had suffered an allergic reaction. Her throat was indeed swelling closed, and she had her life saved in the nick of time via a counteracting injection to the bee-hind (this again, from the doctor on call).

Ya know, I don’t even know what to say about this. It’s just stranger than fiction. I guess that the moral of the story is, I’m Okay! Now, I lost my damn cat, that I loved dearly, but my family is well, mostly.

How was your week?