Listening To Your Intuition

I have learned, sometimes the hard way, that you should always trust your gut feeling. Anytime I have gone against it, I end up regretting it.

Right now, my gut is telling me NOT to go through with this surgery. My insides are screaming at me...."Don't do it, This isn't Right For Her".

So here is my internal struggle...Trust the doctors or trust my gut?

Because I was not at the appointment last week, I had some questions that I wanted to ask. And I wanted to talk to the doctor myself. I called today (Monday) and spoke with Dr. Bortz and after our conversation I am not comfortable with him or this procedure at all.

His tone of voice and attitude completely put me off. He actually seemed annoyed that I was asking questions that he had already explained to Jason last week. Sorry Mr. Smarty pants, I wasn't there that day and have never met you. I'd like to know more about the surgery you are supposed to perform on my 2 year old daughter and right now your attitude is not making me feel any better!

One of the biggest concerns is a huge snowstorm that is supposed to start Tuesday night and continue all the way through Wednesday night. 12-18 inches are forcasted for where we live and right now I'm not so sure we are going to be able to make it to the hospital at 6:30 am Wednesday. Seeing as though we live an hour an a half away from the hospital, I asked him what we should do if that happens. His answer was "You need to get a hotel room so you can be close by in order to make it on time. There are a few within 10 minutes of here and are probably not that expensive". Ummmm....ok. What do I do with my other 2 children? I certainly can't bring them with me, or leave them at the hotel. I suppose I could have them spend the night with their grandparents, but they have never had an overnight before so that presents it's own set of problems. I told him that even if we do get a hotel the night before, the storm isn't supposed to end until Wed night, so we might not be able to get home. "Well then you'll just have to stay at the hotel again a second night"...Gee thanks, easy for you to say - are you paying for it? Are you going to take care of our 2 older children? I didn't think so.

"Ok, so if we don't get a hotel the night before and can't make it Wednesday morning, what should we do then?".....In a very condescending tone..."Well that's a decision you need to make right now, because if you don't show up Wednesday morning, we will all be sitting around for an hour and a half doing nothing, and that's not appropriate." EXCUSE ME??? Oh I'm sorry...you mean you won't be making any MONEY! Ahhhh....I see now....the health and safety of your patients aren't as important as your bank roll. Nice.

Aside from the discussion about the snowstorm, I was concerned about the "permanence" of these stitches. Why wasn't this going to be temporary? Any exactly HOW drastic will the change in her appearance be? Again...with a nasty tone in his voice...."Well you are her mother and you control how far I go with this, if you only want her to look a little different, then I will only put as few stitches in as possible. If you want her eye to heal and preserve her vision, then you need to let me do what I need to do". THANKS ASSHOLE, I feel so much better now.

As I got off the phone, I told him I would talk to my husband and let his office know what we decided about rescheduling the surgery on Wed because of the snow.

Now my gut is screaming "This is not the right doctor, This is not the right procedure for her, This is too drastic, too permanent...DON'T DO THIS". How am I supposed to ignore that???

The last time I went against my gut regarding Emily's eyes was when Dr. Kane wanted to take her off of the Iquix completely back in December. After healing from her surgery in November, he didn't feel she needed it anymore. I didn't like that idea since Dr. Zaidman had kept her on it at least once a day in each eye as a preventative of infection after her scratched right cornea back in October of 2008. My inner voice told me that she should still be on it at least once a day, but I trusted Dr. Kane and stopped giving it to her...3 weeks later she had a scratch on both corneas and a bacterial infection in her right eye.

The feeling I have is one of great conflict...am I feeling this way because of how the doctor talked to me? Or was it because all of these things are adding up, creating a wall of doubt about this entire procedure? I was sick the day she was supposed to see Dr. Bortz, a huge snowstorm is forecast for the day of her surgery, the nagging feeling I had from day one that this was too drastic of a solution for her...Were the forces of nature putting up roadblocks?

I cried...a lot. I talked it over with numerous friends and family. Everyone agreed that if I didn't feel comfortable with this doctor or this surgery...don't do it. My last ditch effort to make some sense out of this was to call Dr. Kane and ask his opinion on it all. We spoke for about 20 minutes and after our conversation I felt better. Better in terms of how important it is for Emily to have this surgery, and better about the decision to postpone it and possibly get a second opinion. He agreed to send an email to Dr. Zaidman questioning the timing of things and how soon she really needed to have this done. He also told me that he has done this surgery before and by all means it is NOT permanent. The stitches can be undone at anytime, for any reason. If we don't like the way she looks after her cornea has healed...we can have the stitches taken out. I joked around, half serious though....asking if he could do the surgery. No such luck...oh well.

After speaking to him and talking with Jason, we agreed that going to the extreme measures to get this done on Wednesday wasn't worth it. If it didn't feel right and there was any question about how safe it would be for us to travel in the snow, or costly to pay for a hotel...it just wasn't worth it.

After a very emotionally draining day, I felt better. I was going to be able to sleep tonight knowing that in the morning I was going to call and reschedule the surgery.

I was trusting my gut.