Always Trust Your Gut

Always trust your gut, even if a medical professional tells you otherwise.

This week, yes its only Thursday early morning – Ive been up since 5am, we have had two strong reminders of this. If I was honest, it was actually both in less than 24 hours.

Two years ago at my last eye appointment, I expressed concerns for my eye sight, that I was experiencing blurry and double vision. Two years ago when I told the eye Doctor this, his response when he asked me what I could see, was “you shouldn’t be seeing double right now” (during the test) and yet I was. It was left at that. Should I have persisted, yup I now know that without a doubt in my body. Tuesday evening I got my eyes checked, different Doctor, same clinic. I expressed my concerns to her and felt heard. I felt not only heard, I felt understood, I felt her concern for me to figure out what was going on. She found a solution. She explained the solution and what was going on. I felt relief, reassurance, Im not going crazy after being told I “shouldn’t be seeing double or have blurry vision”. I am grateful.

I blogged previously about adults asking questions – think of kids, they do this all.the.time. Adults need to do this more and without a doubt, trust their gut feeling. Last Monday my husband came home from the hospital. I will preface this with my gratitude for having a hospital in town, which is capable of performing a lot of services and thankfully has not been overwhelmed anytime we or a family member has been there. When he told me the Doctor said the x-ray was good and to take anti-inflammatories and get a compression sock, it was me saying WTF – but WHY!? WHY is your ankle and leg swollen. WHY are you having pain. Sadly, I know the misinformation that can happen in health care from my own health experience. So I called last week and made an appointment with his surgeon.

To be honest, I am still processing what we were told yesterday and what this will mean. One of my co-workers reminded me the other day (before the surgeon appt) that it could have been so much worse, he was right, hearing that hit my heart hard. I also cannot deny how I feel and allow myself to process through this.

He was told there was a hardware fracture. When I think of a fracture, I think of something still in place but maybe a hairline crack or something. No this hardware was clearly broke. Very clearly broke. So clear that we could both see it across the doctors office. Ok so it was 5 feet away, but that’s the size of the office 😉 Not only does the hardware on one side of his leg have to come out and be re-done, it may also mean taking bone from his hip to help reinforce the ankle/leg where the surgeon doesn’t feel the bone is healing. The surgeon also said do not take the anti-inflammatories. Which he hadn’t been taking since late last week anyway.

It took a week to find out there was a fracture after being told go home, take anti-inflammatories and wear a compression sock. A FUCKING WEEK. A week of walking on it, going to physio and living in pain, feeling so confused because it didn’t make sense. A nose dive in mental health. For both of us.

Why am I sharing this. ALWAYS TRUST YOUR GUT.

Just because a medical professional tells you something, that does not mean that’s the only absolute truth. If you feel something is wrong – LISTEN TO YOURSELF. Listen to HOW you feel. Do not let anyone tell you how you should feel.