Not At My Hospital?

Within a couple days I was back at the vascular surgeon’s office to discuss my CTA results. He proceeds to tell me that I needed surgery and it couldn’t be done at my hospital. My hospital where I know staff in anesthesia, surgery, the nursing units. My hospital where I feel comfortable and know I’ll get taken care of like family. Here come the nerves again, I didn’t want to go somewhere where I knew nobody! I had heard not such good things about the nursing staff in the larger city I was being referred to. But my surgeon recommended a place that he had done rounds at in his residency that was most like our hospital. It was a smaller hospital and he said that the staff were super friendly. He was referring me to a surgeon who he had rounded with and that he said was excellent. This new surgeon had many years experience and performed this procedure that I needed many times. He calmed my nerves by telling me he had faith in this new surgeon and if he needed this procedure, he would let him perform the surgery on him. As I trusted him wholeheartedly, I agreed and he contacted the new surgeon who accepted me.

The procedure I needed was a cervical rib resection (removal of the rib growing off my neck). Other than a C-Section, which was very uneventful, I had never had any major surgeries. I immediately start researching this new surgeon. I find that he’s board certified in general and vascular surgery. With the excellent reviews I read online and my current surgeon at my hospital feeling confident in him, I start to feel confident in him myself. My surgeon lets me know that the office will be calling me to set up an office visit. And yet again, I’m stuck with the daunting task of waiting.