Mary Wilson
I am a 50 y/o female. I am divorced. I came to live in Florida as United States Air Force dependant wife and I stayed because of my children. I attended nursing school here. I had not been happy in my marriage for a long time so after nursing school and being on the job for a long time I finally asked my ex to leave, in 1999. That was the best thing for both of us although he had a harder time accepting it. I was overweight, but not morbidly obese during that time. After the divorce was started, I had what I call a minor nervous breakdown. I was involved in several bad relationships, stressed out at work and suicidal. My employer encouraged me to take some action (by terminating me) and get help for myself. The funny part (not haha) was that I was already under a psychiatrists and psychologists care. I spent the next 7 years searching for who I was. I had belonged to a nurse support group and continued individual therapy as well. I also spent that time eating myself sick. I didn't have a way to control myself. Each new diet start ended quickly with me clinging even more desperately to food. There isn't a food out there that I don't like, just foods that don't like me (GERD). I didn't care, I ate it anyway and then ate Tums for desert, snack, and whenever the GERD hit. When Tums stopped working I moved onto Zantac 300mg twice daily. I worked at a local hospital from 2003 to 2007 and met a surgeon there that was doing gastric bypass. I wanted it immediately. My insurance wouldn't pay a dime, nada, nothing, zip. So as I trudged along in daily life, miserable because of my weight, I became angry and indignant. I had a secondary insurance that I learned would pay for WLS so I contacted that surgeons office, was sent the initial paperwork and after a few phone conversations learned I would have to do everything...from primary insurance refusal to authorization from my secondary insurance. So in April 2007, I made the decision to do whatever it took to get the surgery. But something in the back of my mind kept nagging at me. I talked to patients that had the surgery at the hospital I worked at, I also took care of some patients that had the surgery elsewhere. These were sick people. I didn't want to have the surgery if I had their illnesses to face. During that time, the radio station I listened to was having a lot of Dr Lord commercials. I kept hearing "the important thing I would ask is who would I want my mother to have WLS with". My mother was gone, God rest her soul. So, I put myself in my kids shoes and decided I needed to do a little more research. I spoke at length with the surgeon that I knew. I had seen some of his patients and their outcome was not good. But his weren't the only ones I saw. He has some excellent results but I couldn't get past the mortality factor. I did not want a surgery that I very likely would die as a result of. This surgeon, and I love him dearly, kept going on about how these people didn't buy into the "program" of WLS. Well, hell, I couldn't stick to a diet how was I going to stick with the WLS "program"? So when I left this hospital, I moved to SHHS. During my orientation, there was going to be a weightloss seminar during one of the evenings. So, I registered and I went. OMG, what a difference. There had to be 100+ people at this seminar. Jan Carlo started the seminar and then introduced Dr Lord. I could not believe the things I heard. NO MORTALITY? No way. I was hooked. The people at the seminar asked and answered all the questions I had swimming in my head. Dr Lord's reputation was spotless and I wanted him to operate on me. Who better than someone who learned from the guy that perfected this surgery? The only drawback was I might have to wait a long time. This seminar was in June and Dr Lord was booked through August already. I couldn't wait that long...I needed surgery now, tomorrow if possible. Then Dr Lord introduced Dr Friedman. His personal protege. Dr Friedman had just completed "fellowship training" with Dr Lord and Dr Lord was giving him his seal of approval. Well, then I thought, if I can't have the original guy anyway (Dr Lord's mentor) and Dr Lord was booked, then the guy with the seal of approval would work for me, besides Dr Lord's endorsement, he was cute! So, I set up my initial "stuff". Let me tell you, the office staff was WONDERFUL. I wish I could say the same thing about my PCP's office staff. I had to do some work with them but a threat to inform the physician that I couldn't get my info sent to Dr Friedman and everything moved quickly then. Dr Lord/Dr Friedman's staff, they told me everything I needed to do...step by itty-bitty step. Plus they handled everything. I didn't have to get auth from my insurance and since I didn't have the other hospital insurance anymore my secondary became my primary and I was good to go. I never once felt like this surgery would never happen. As a matter of fact it happened sooner than I expected. So from seminar in June 2007 to surgery in November 2007 is all I had to wait and I am glad I did my surgery this way.
