Sometimes, the happiest patients were the most reluctant to be patients in the first place. Margaret Hill is a great example of this; it took excruciating pain in her back and not being able to work to finally get her to see Dr. Gaetan Moise, a neurosurgeon from the Columbia Neurosurgery Network – NJ. Even then, she had to come back twice to see him before she agreed to her much needed back surgery.
Now, a few months after surgery, Margaret is all smiles. She returned to Dr. Moise’s office recently, toting a huge gift basket of fruit for everyone. “I haven’t had any back pain since my surgery. Nothing! It’s just amazing. I’m so happy!”
Margaret’s problem began last February. “I got a terrible pain in my back,” she says. “I tried pills and patches. Nothing worked.” Her primary care doctor told her she needed to see a neurosurgeon,”But I was stubborn.” She says she thought she could manage it.
That is, until the pain got worse. “I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t turn,” she says, ” I was scared. I couldn’t go to work. I was living by myself so I had to go get help.”
Her doctor sent her to The Valley Hospital, in Ridgewood, New Jersey, where they took an MRI of her back. “They told me the problem was the discs in my back, and that is probably what made me feel all that pain,” she says. And, finally, she called to set up an appointment with neurosurgeon, Dr. Gaetan Moise.
Margaret says Dr. Moise’s office staff were great. They got her test results and set up an appointment with the doctor right away. “Dr. Moise was so nice too,” Margaret says. “He was good. I’ve been to doctors before over the years, and they have their clipboard, they walk in and you’re talking to them, and they have no time to sit and listen to what you’re saying. But he was good. He sat down and he listened to me.”
Dr.Moise told Margaret she needed surgery, a procedure called a microdiscectomy. “Man, I was scared,” she says. “I was bawling. I was terrified. I didn’t want to have surgery. I went home and called my friend and asked her what should I do? She said, ‘Listen you have to go back and have the surgery you have no other choice. You have to be able to work.’ So I called Dr. Moise back and made another appointment to see him.”
Dr. Moise got Margaret into surgery at the Valley Hospital right away. “My recovery was good. I had surgery on a Tuesday and I was up Wednesday morning,” she says. “I went back to work in one month. I am so happy. I love my doctor!”
Learn more about Dr. Gaetan Moise on his bio page here.
