IN 2001, I was your typical, hard-working pediatric emergency room doctor…until I won 56 million dollars (17.5 million take home) in the Florida Lottery with a ticket bought in the hospital’s gift shop. This stroke of luck brought with it numerous challenges as well as self-discovery.
In my memoir, Pressing My Luck, I take readers on a tour of my life and candidly look back on how the lottery windfall affected it. I recall my childhood in Camden, New Jersey growing up with parents who were Holocaust survivors, my determination to become successful, the wild 1970 summer adventure at Paul McCartney’s house and the years dedicated to practicing medicine. And despite my lottery fortune, I reveal how money didn’t shield my family from life’s adversities, such as my husband’s near fatal illness and my son’s drug addiction.
Published in 2013, Pressing My Luck is an exploration of my life – pre and post lottery. In the end…I realize that most of the confidence and personal growth, which I attributed to winning the Lotto, could have been achieved without the money.
