Dr E

August


Through a friend of the family we were put in touch with Dr E soon after we found out the extent of Little S’s heart problems.


He is a lead paediatric cardiologist at one of the best units in Britain yet willing to take time out for phone calls about Little S – providing us with more essential information and supplementing what we heard from Dr D.


I had already spoken to him twice before we agreed with Dr D to get a second opinion from Dr E – the two doctors knew each other well and so were quite comfortable with the referral.


Dr D sent Little S’s results to Dr E and, after a few more weeks, we received a letter that seemed to essentially confirm Dr D’s recommendation – we should go ahead with surgery. Dr E and his team had suggested some minor differences in approach but said that Dr D had provided a perfectly reasonable suggestion.


I spoke to Dr E this evening and he confirmed that his letter did indeed recommend that surgery was the right way forward – I guess that this was what we had expected but maybe part of me had hoped that Dr E would come up with some radically different procedure that was much less invasive and risky for Little S.


So now we have two recommendations from two different top consultants, and both ask for our permission to perform open heart surgery on Little S in order to mend her heart plumbing.


As much as we might feel that we don’t want to subject Little S to anything like this, with this second opinion our decision is effectively made for us.