Angie Glazier — ‘We Knew We Were in the Right Place’
Angie Glazier of Traverse City was the first person to have bariatric surgery at Munson Medical Center. She became such a fan of her surgeons, she now works for them as assistant program coordinator.
Grand Traverse Surgery, PC surgeons Roche Featherstone, MD, and Michael Nizzi, DO, performed the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass procedure for the first time on Aug. 1, 2003. They completed three surgeries that day. Angie had no qualms about being their first patient. In addition to Featherstone and Nizzi, the specialists who had trained them were also present.
“I felt safe. I knew they were going to be extra careful because I was the first one.”
Angie began researching bariatric surgery when she was 35. “My mom was 38 when she had her first heart attack. I did not want to follow in her footsteps.”
Angie and her husband traveled to Grand Rapids to attend a seminar on bariatric surgery. “I really wanted to do the surgery but I wasn’t comfortable with the whole process. I didn’t want to have a two-and-a-half hour drive to do the follow-up care with the physician.”
Angie learned from her primary care physician that a bariatric surgery program was being developed at Munson and would be launched within a few months. “I asked to be informed as soon as it was ready.”
Angie attended the first bariatric seminar held in Traverse City and met Mary Kay Williams, MSN, FNP-C, the program coordinator who leads the seminars. “The instant I met Mary Kay she made me feel relaxed and comfortable. She even made my husband comfortable,” Angie said. “This whole thing can be overwhelming, but when we met with Mary Kay it was like a big weight was off our shoulders. We knew we were in the right place. From there, everything just fell into place. I really was very much at ease.”
At the time of her surgery, Angie was 37 and weighed 268 pounds. “I was pre-diabetic, pre-everything. I couldn’t see living the rest of my life like that — that was the deciding factor.”
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