Coincidence: I Would Never Have Thought It Was Real

 I don’t believe in coincidence. I am a scientist, and things do not happen without cause and effect. Coincidence is a mental path to try and understand something that has happened. This said, I am going to tell you how my week went.

I was walking down the road on my way to my pasture where my two lovely horses were grazing on clover and foaming at the mouth.

Now I know what you’re thinking, just listen for a moment and I will tell you why they are foaming.

Clover is an irritant and causes excessive salivation in some horses and mine were super sensitive and I had not put lime on the field to keep the lime in check last year, so they had an abundance of clover.

I called to them as I reached the gate and pulled a plastic bag out of my pocket full of treats. They came trotting up and while they were busy taking advantage of my generosity I slipped halters and lead ropes on them and tied them to the fence. I let them have the rest of the treats and climbed over the fence and took the lead ropes in hand and led them to the barn whereupon they were stalled. It was a necessary step in the prevention of a more serious problem associated with overeating the clover.

I went to the hay loft and grabbed a generous amount of hay and dropped it into their mangers from a hole in the floor of the loft. They immediately went to the mangers and started eating.

As they were happily munching, I turned around and ran into the barn manager. “Into the clover, I see.” He said, noticing the remnants of foam on the horses’ mouths.

“Yeah, I didn’t get to that lime like I should’ve and now I’ve got a problem. Can you bring in the rest of the boarders’ horses? I don’t have time this morning to help out and they need to be brought off the fields.”

“Sure, I will go fetch them in. See you this evening?” He asked.

“Yes, I will swing by on my way home.” I said as I turned to leave.

Walking down the road, I thought that’s funny. I usually don’t see him until the evening and usually have to call him, when things need done.

I got home and took a quick shower and put on my lab clothes and left. I drove slowly by the field, making sure he was rounding up the other horses. Seeing him in action so early was strange but it was a good thing because I relied on the money that the boarded horses brought in. It was hard to have a hobby you loved that was so expensive and horses are the most expensive hobby you can have.

I arrived at the lab and was greeted by the phlebotomist. In the back of my mind I am thinking, “What’s she doing here before me?”

“Hey, back. You’re early today.” I say as I start my day warming up the instruments and quality control materials.

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened this morning.” She replied as she looked over her patient load for the day. I thought I heard her groan and looked over, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine why?” Nothing, I thought you groaned about something.

I turned on my computer and it slowly came on and all my necessary login prompts flashed across the screen. I entered my screen ID and my password and the screen opened up onto my lab software.

I had the instruments all up and running by the time the first patient showed up and everything was running smoothly. I was talking to the phlebotomist about my morning and she was regaling me with stories of her children. As we talked, I noticed a beeping noise.

“Is that you, beeping.” I asked.

“No, I don’t hear nothing, must be something in the lab.” She replied.

I look up from my computer, “Wow, I just had the strangest feeling that we’ve been talking about my horses and your kids.”

“We talk about them everyday.”

“I just had a weird feeling when we were talking just now, that we had already said everything before.” Now like I said earlier, I don’t believe in coincidence. I also don’t believe in deja vu. I am a scientist and it has to be a scientific fact for me to believe.

I hear a beeping noise, “Is that you, beeping.” I asked. I gulped. I said that earlier. I know I did. I walked around the lab and she comes in and says, “No, I don’t hear nothing, must be something in the lab.”

I’m going nuts. Things like this don’t happen.

I finally find the source of the beeping and pull the phlebotomist over and sure enough, now she can hear it. I pull out my phone and call the tech support line for the instrument that is beeping and for an hour we go through a thorough troubleshooting episode that causes a serious back up in patient lab results. The doctor comes into the lab and starts asking about patient results and I tell her that it will be about twenty minutes before I can release the results she is asking about.

I get the instrument put back together and run the quality control materials and it passes for the second time today and I throw all my patient samples on and start churning out reports. The doctor comes back to the lab and starts reading the reports as they are printing out, looking for a certain patient that is sitting in her room waiting on the result.

“OH MY!” She blurts out. “Is this correct?” she asks as she hands me a report of a patient that had only come in for lab work and had not had an appointment today.

I look at it and say, “Yes, I ran QC as soon as the instrument was back up and running and it passed with flying colors so this result has to be correct.” as I hand the report back to her.

“This is bad, really bad, I need to see this patient immediately. They have already left, haven’t they?” she asks.

The phlebotomist says, “No they are still here. I don’t know why they waited around. I told them that they didn’t need to wait.”

The phlebotomist ran out to pull the patient back in for the doctor to talk to.

“I guess someone was looking out for me today. My car has a flat tire and I can't change it so I was waiting for my son to come and change the tire for me.” I heard the patient telling the phlebotomist as he was being led down the hall to a room.

Seriously, too good to be true but the patient's flat tire may have saved her life.

I think back on how my day started. First with the clover suddenly popping up over night, which it tends to do with several days of warm weather in the spring. Then, my barn manager being at the barn in the morning which has never happened to get all the horses off the field for me. The strange deja vu episode that I have never had before. And now, a patient that was told they didn’t have to stay for results, had car trouble and could not leave right away.

My day at work was finally over at four o’clock and I go out to my car and get in. It wouldn’t start. I call my wife after checking all the cables under the hood and looking to see if I had any jumper cables with me and tell her that my car won’t start and could she come and bring jumper cables. The whole process of me doing all of that took about twenty minutes.

She replied on the phone, “Wow, it’s a good thing you weren’t able to start your car. There was a ten car pile up on the highway and you would’ve been in the middle of it.”

I am beginning to rethink my stand on coincidences at this point. I open the car door to let in fresh air while I wait for my wife to get here. She arrives about thirty minutes later and I get the jumper cables hooked up and start my car. We head home. She goes on ahead, knowing that I always stop and check on the horses on my way home and to catch up with the manager on any problems with the barn or boarders.

I drive up to the barn and go inside and the manager comes out of the office to greet me.

“How was your day?” He says as he comes up to me.

“I had a lot of weird things happen today and to be honest it started with you being here this morning.” I say back to him.

“Well about that, I had this inkling that something was wrong this morning and I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the last time I had a feeling like that and ignored it a mare that I was looking after foaled and died before I arrived. I just couldn’t let something like that happen again. I learnt the hard way to listen to my gut and it hasn’t let me down yet.”

Laughing, I said, “Yeah, I had coincidence and deja vu all day and I am glad to be home.”

“About the clover, I sprayed the field and it should clear up in a day or two. Until then we need to keep the horses in the barn. It will be safe for them to be on the field after the clover dies off. I used a spray that is non-toxic so it won’t harm the horses. I have the bill right here.” He said, as he handed me a piece of paper. I got my wallet out and gave him the money to cover the expense.

“Thanks for taking care of that. I will get some lime on my way home tomorrow and you can spread it when you see fit, so this won’t happen next year. You have a good night and see you tomorrow.” I shook his hand and headed home. I thought about everything that happened that day and what the manager had told me about his inkling. Maybe there is something to coincidence after all.