Reason for the hate? Well, there are several. But one of the main ones is that I think people used to be way better friends to each other before facebook. You know, when we used to actually call each other to find out what was going on in our friends lives. Not just looking at facebook posts to see.
But that's beside the point. Right now I love facebook. Right now I am grateful for facebook. Right now I feel so indebted to facebook. Ok, not really. Don't come knocking at my door looking for payment Mark Zuckerburg.
But I do love it at the moment and here's why.
A few months ago, when I found out that the blood clot (DVT) that was in my pelvis wasn't going away at all, I started to suspect I had something called May Thurner Syndrome. The dumb-ed down version of MTS (I'm dumb-ing it down because it's the only way I know it, not because I think you need it to be) is that there are right main veins and left main veins, that go down into the legs, and the right main vein is compressing the left main vein, restricting blood flow. Thus contributing to blood clots, and/or keeping the body from being able to naturally break the clot down.
So thanks to handy dandy facebook, I was able to ask a little bit about MTS on a support group for people with DVT. Through my post asking about MTS, I connected with a girl in Texas. She had a similar story to mine in that she was diagnosed with a very large blood clot soon after giving birth. She told me that she ended up searching and searching and finally finding an amazing doctor in Pennsylvania who she flew up to see to get treatment for her clot, and he was the one who found she had MTS. I appreciated her insight and let her know that if I was diagnosed with MTS, I'd probably have more questions for her.
Fast forward a couple months, and I was finally tested for MTS by having a ct scan, and found out I for sure had it. Once again, I turned to facebook and a support group for folks with MTS. The doctor I saw bombarded me with a list of things that were "wrong" with me when he gave me the diagnosis and I felt SO overwhelmed. I asked questions on the support group, and was surprised to find that there was a doctor in the group who answered my questions. And the more I asked, the more he answered. The next week, I went to another doctor to get a second opinion. This doctor had a completely different opinion and approach to my blood clot and MTS. I left his office still feeling so upset.
The bottom line was that I was confused, uneasy, upset, and just didn't feel confident in either one of the doctors I saw. The thought of either one of them doing a procedure on me just didn't feel...right. Not that I think they are bad doctors. Just that I didn't feel like they were right for my specific needs. So I came home so frustrated after seeing the second doctor. I looked on the internet more for the specific kind of doctor I needed, and just wasn't finding anything and I felt so stuck.
Then that doctor on the MTS support group came to mind. He's up at UPenn and I'd asked him the night before if he saw clients from out of state, just on a whim. He was kind enough to send me a private message letting me know he did. So, I called my insurance company. He's a contracted provider. I remembered the girl from Texas who fought hard to find a good doctor. I contacted her again...it was the same doctor who'd been answering my questions!! She loved him, and said she trusted him with her life. It was clear to me that I needed to pursue treatment from him. He and I messaged back and forth and he continued to be kind enough to answer my questions about what things I needed to send him and how long it would take. He assured me that he'd review my scans within a day or two of receiving them and said that he'd let me know if he felt like he was the one that could help me.
As soon as I made the decision to pursue treatment from him, I felt completely at ease. All of the worries and anxiety I had about it diminished. I was able to go up and meet with him last week, where it only further confirmed that he was the right doctor for me.
And in a couple weeks I'll be heading back up to UPenn for him to do a procedure to open up the compressed vein and hopefully get rid of the issues I've been having with my leg.
All of this...thanks to facebook. It's not often that I can clearly see how things came together perfectly and for my own good. But this was a time when I for sure saw the hand of my Heavenly Father, perfectly orchestrating something just for me. I am so grateful for the people that were put in my path and for being led the way I was. And even though I often hate facebook and modern technologies, I know for sure things wouldn't have gone this way if it wasn't for them!
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