Follow your gut.

We all have it. A gut, intuition, instinct..whatever you prefer to call it, we all have it. This tiny little thing inside of us that tells us what we believe, whether we like it or not. Each and every one of us is faced with hundreds of decisions to make on a daily basis. I don’t know about you, but I’m not the best at making decisions. In the past two months, I’ve made more decisions than any 20-year-old ever should. Aside from all of the people that have supported me so far, I can thank my gut for where I am today. Here are a couple of examples of when this tiny little thing came in handy..

The first night I had horrible back pain, I knew something was wrong. Despite taking a muscle relaxer and pain medication, the pain only worsened. Two ER visits later, I was diagnosed with bronchitis and had apparently torn a muscle in my back from coughing. As an athlete, (or so I like to think) I know what muscle pain feels like. About a week had gone by of minimal sleep, (and studying on narcotics) and the pain just wasn’t getting any better. The minute I woke up feeling tingling in my toes, I didn’t care what the doctors were telling me..there was no way I had only torn a muscle. Loooong story short, I followed my gut. I made the appointments, saw who I needed to see, and found the problem.

Our society places doctors and medical practitioners on a throne where no mistakes can be made. In reality, everyone makes mistakes. I’m not writing this to blame those doctors for the nerve damage I still have in my legs. I’m writing this to tell you that if you ever have to make a difficult decision, listen to your gut. Because honestly, I probably would be paralyzed right now if I hadn’t.

The neurosurgeon looked at my mother and me and told us that this “thing” in my spine needed to removed in the next thirty minutes. Immediately my mother started rambling off..Who is this doctor? Do we need a second opinion? Why does it need to be removed tonight? ..all normal questions that I wasn’t allowing myself to ask. I think that was the first time in my entire life where I knew what was best for myself before she did.  To this day I will never understand how I looked at my mother and told her I would be okay. I guess you could say I lied to her face, because clearly I had no idea if that was true. With the surgeon waiting for the go ahead, I told my mother exactly what she needed to hear. Thirty minutes later, I was in Bora Bora (as I informed my anesthesiologist) enjoying a margarita with my feet in the sand.

Keep it simple. Follow your gut.