In 2001, Dr. Shirley Press was your typical, hard-working pediatric emergency room doctor — until she 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 her memoir, PRESSING MY LUCK, Dr. Press takes readers on a tour of her life and candidly looks back on how the lottery windfall affected it. She recalls her childhood in Camden, New Jersey growing up with parents who were Holocaust survivors, her determination to become successful, the wild 1970 summer adventure at Paul McCartney’s house and the years dedicated to practicing medicine. And despite her lottery fortune, she reveals how money didn’t shield her family from life’s adversities, such as her husband’s near fatal illness and her son’s drug addiction.

With insight and candor, Dr. Press recounts her decisions, daily struggles as well as post-lottery observations on family, friends and life in general. In the end, Dr. Press can hardly believe that most of her confidence and personal growth that she thought was due to winning the Lotto could have been achieved without all the money.

Praise for Pressing My Luck:

Inspiring memoir…
“Who in his or her lifetime has not fantasized about winning the lottery? would it solve our problems? In her fascinating new memoir, Dr Shirley Press addresses this issue honestly and candidly, and we clearly learn that even a huge amount of money is not a panacea for all of life’s ills…”

an excerpt from

PRESSING MY LUCK:
A Doctor’s Lottery Journey
by Shirley Press

FOREWORD:

First Impressions

When I was helping my mother move to an independent living facility we had to part with many of her things. She was going from a 2,200 square foot house to a 700 square foot apartment. At the time, I thought about what is left behind at the end of one’s life besides memories and photographs. My mother is a Holocaust survivor. Her life story is preserved in video interviews conducted by two organizations that document the lives of those who survived the horrors of Nazi Germany. These videotapes are her legacy. Her life is inspiring. While my life pales in comparison, I also would like to share and inspire. Plain and simple, that’s why I’ve written this book.

After diagnosing otitis media (ear infection) over 15,000 times, I came to the conclusion that I am more than ready to try something new. Summoning the perseverance that saw me through medical school and residency in pediatrics, I applied myself to writing this book (although, it has actually taken me longer to finish than the four years of medical school). This work contains a lifetime of thoughts, experiences and perhaps some of my ego demanding its due after years of being suppressed by my shyness.

In a nutshell, this is my life. There are happy days, funny events, depressing and desperate times, revelations and a lot of coincidences. It’s a convoluted American dream in a lot of ways. Between the lines, I seek to find my special place and purpose in this world. One of my biggest fears in life is be unmemorable or invisible.

Like many aspiring authors, I’ve been writing this book for much longer than I ever expected. To bend a well-known phrase; dying is easy; it’s writing that’s tough. Sometimes, I have ideas that evaporate before I write them down. I’m still working as a physician. I get distracted by life which consumes the time I vowed to dedicate to my book.

However, I finally got the jolt I needed when I was required to take a vision test and renew my driver’s license a few years ago. As the clerk handed me my new license, I asked, “When do I have to renew again?”  She replied, “Eight years.” I was aghast. In eight years, I was going to be 66. I knew it was time to reinvent myself. I made a resolution not to waste any more time. Of course, this is impossible, but I am trying.

I considered writing a memoir before I won the lottery. There was my chance encounter with the essence of Paul McCartney, a total fantasy for a die-hard Beatles fan, though I couldn’t see that it would amount to much more than a three to four page story. Then I considered writing about the Pediatric ER and learning more about my parents’ early lives. However, with working long hours and raising a family, I never found the time. I thought I’d get to it when I went part-time or retired.

Then it happened. In 2001, I was your typical, hardworking, pediatric emergency room doctor … until I won 56 million dollars (17.5 million take home) in the Florida Lottery with a ticket that I bought in the hospital’s gift shop. It gave me the time needed to write and it cast a new light on everything. There have been unintended consequences to winning the lottery and the money has not prevented my family from facing despairing times. Yet the lottery has led to new experiences, such as wading into the South Florida charity scene, figuring out how to fend off scammers, meeting new people and harboring the admittedly juvenile feelings of payback that come into play. The win has also enabled me to expand my life and perspective in surprising ways.

As a little girl, I always dreamed about being rich, or rather, dreamed about not being poor. I thought if I was driven – studied hard, earned college scholarships, and picked the right career – I would be successful. And that’s what happened. By the time I was 50, I had pretty much accomplished my goals, but also felt resigned that most of my major adventures were behind me. Then, my secret fantasy came true – I won the lottery. My polyester life turned to silk.

So I hope people will enjoy sharing my adventures and perhaps learn something along the way. I want the lessons learned in my life to be part of my legacy. With my writing, I hope to make a lasting impression.

1.  Ticket To Ride

As a doctor I’m well aware that the unexpected doesn’t come pre-announced. A person doesn’t wake up in the morning thinking, I’m going to wind up in the emergency room today or I’m going to have a car sideswipe me as I cross the street at lunchtime. As it turns out, the same thing is true when good fortune pulls up a seat at your dinner table.

I was aware that there would be a drawing on the night of September 5, 2001 for what was at that point the largest lottery jackpot in Florida’s history. I fully intended to buy a few tickets that day, as I did nearly every week, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fit it in. I worked a short shift in the ER that morning treating patients, took a mandatory course on blood borne pathogens right after that, and then had to race back to my office to deal with the mountain of paperwork that had been collecting all day.

At the time, I was the director of a pediatric emergency department and surprisingly many people were under the impression that I did nothing but attend meetings from nine to five. Besides seeing patients, the endlessly growing pile of documents to review, messages to read and calls to return attested to something very different. After I completed the course, I needed immediate documentation of my attendance so I had to take extra time after the class was over to get that from the lecturer. I really didn’t have a spot in my schedule to buy lottery tickets, but since I played the lottery so often, it seemed ludicrous for me not to participate in such an enormous jackpot.

The sprawling Jackson Memorial Hospital complex included an arcade with a variety of shops, including a gift shop that sold the tickets. I ducked in on my way back from the lecture and sighed heavily when I saw a line of around 10 people ahead of me, all waiting for the single cashier to help them out. This gift shop was never crowded, even when the hospital was very busy. It became immediately apparent that the huge lottery drawing was the reason everyone was lined up here that day.

“I’m gonna get myself a gigantic house when I win,” said one woman to another while they waited.

“I’m gonna have steak every night,” the other replied dreamily.

The man in front of them turned in their direction. “I have my eyes on a Maserati. A black one with lots of chrome.”

They all grinned and continued to expand on their fantasies. I could tell from their ID badges that they were workers at the hospital. A part of me wanted to join in on their musing, but I didn’t. I was wearing a lab coat and was obviously a doctor, and they probably figured I didn’t belong in the line in the first place. Most people, even those who work closely with us, are under the impression that all doctors are wealthy. Even though that’s far from true, I felt a little bit out of place.

“I’m gonna get my kids back,” said the woman directly in front of me. Everyone turned in her direction. She told the group that she’d lost her six children due to neglect, but that once she hit it big on the lottery, the family would be together again. That sounded better to me than throwing a few hundred thousand after a car, though the mention of neglect made me wonder if any amount of money could make that family whole.

I didn’t consider what I would do with all the cash. Since I’d never won anything in my life, and the odds of winning that night’s drawing were one in twenty million, I assumed my losing streak would continue. I just liked to play. What I did think about was everything I had to do when I got back to my office, along with wondering about crises that might have emerged in my absence. The woman behind the counter was doing the best she could, but she seemed to be moving very slowly. Twice while I was waiting, I considered getting out of the line, but I stood my ground. Once I got close enough to see that the store had York Peppermint Patties in stock that day – they’re my favorite candy – my resolve strengthened.

When it was finally my turn, I put a Peppermint Patty on the counter and asked for six Quick Pick tickets. I’d read somewhere that more people won the lottery by having the computer randomly spit out numbers than by choosing their own, so I always played this way. I stuck the tickets with my six sets of numbers in my lab coat pocket, opened the candy wrapper and headed back up to work.

As anticipated, there was a tremendous amount of work for me to attend to when I got back to my office. I literally had to squeeze in a full day’s worth of administrative duties in the few hours I had left that afternoon. The tickets as well as that evening’s Lotto drawing were soon forgotten.

When I got home, a different swirl of activity awaited me. A quick family dinner. Coaxing my teenaged kids through their homework. Relaxing in front of the television for a while. Taking care of a few household chores. At some point, the drawing for the largest lottery jackpot in Florida history happened but it was the furthest thing from my mind.

“Dr. Press, did you hear that someone from Jackson won the lottery?” a nurse said to me as I walked into the clean utility room the next morning.

“Wow,” I said, my eyes widening. “Who is it?”

“No one knows. The winner hasn’t come forward yet. All we know is that the winning ticket came from the gift shop.”

I wondered if it could have been one of my line mates. Maybe it was the woman with the six kids. I continued to assume it wasn’t me, because I didn’t have that kind of luck. In fact, though I’d been playing the Florida lottery for as long as I could remember, I’d never had a winning of more than nine dollars.

Several others joined us at that point, and the speculation began on who it might be and what it was going to do to their lives. As the conversation continued, I tried to imagine how sudden wealth would affect someone.

“That person is going to be such an oddball,” I said during a lull. “They’re not going to be able to fit in anywhere.”

As the day went on, a rumor gained momentum that Carl in the key shop was the winner. He hadn’t come to work and this was clearly an indicator that he’d cashed in and was off scouting a beachfront mansion. When he came in a few hours later, the speculation moved on. It was fascinating to see how this story captivated my colleagues. At some point, some new information broke: the winner had bought six tickets at the gift shop yesterday.

That was the first time I started to consider the possibility that I could be the winner. Surely, I wasn’t the only person who’d bought exactly six tickets at the gift shop yesterday. Still, it narrowed down the crowd. Of course, I could have ended the mystery by checking my tickets, but I thought I’d left them at home on my desk not realizing that I had been spending the entire day with the equivalent of fifty-six million dollars in my lab coat pocket.

The hospital was swirling with activity and I wound up working late. By the time I got home, my husband and children had eaten already. I went upstairs to check my desk where I always left the tickets. The tickets weren’t where I thought I’d left them, which gave me a little surge of panic. I could not find them. I raced around the house like a cat on catnip frantically looking for the tickets. As much as I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t possibly be the winner, the chance was still there. What if I’d managed to misplace the winning ticket? I looked through my pocketbook. There were Tic Tacs, Double Mint Gum and salt packets but no tickets. I gave up and sat down for dinner, reading that morning’s Miami Herald and eating my microwaved Stouffer’s frozen entrée. I mused again on the possibility of being the winner since no one had come forward to claim the gigantic jackpot and then quickly reminded myself that this kind of luck didn’t run in my family. The biggest prize any of us had ever landed was the case of baked beans my father had won many years ago at a grocer’s picnic.

During the meal, I had a fleeting thought that the tickets could quite possibly be in my lab coat. Once I finished dinner I found my lab coat hanging on the hall tree. Of course! I reached into a pocket and pulled out the ticket. Search over. They had been in the top pocket the entire time and I had not even bothered to look at them.

I got the morning paper and went through my usual ticket checking routine. I covered the last three numbers of the six rows of numbers and checked the first three against the newspaper. I did this every week, because the only way a person could be a big winner was to have these first three numbers match. Otherwise, the payouts were tiny (in other words, the kinds of payouts that I knew). Of course, my numbers never matched. However, this week was an exception. The first three numbers of the winner were 3, 9, and 10. One of my rows of numbers on the ticket started with 3, 9, and 10.

My heart jumped just a little. A fleeting thought hit. “Wow, could it be?” I knew the tickets were sold in the gift shop. I knew that there was one winner. I knew– stop it — I laughed out loud at the thought. Never, not me!

    I froze; my heart was pounding not wanting to reveal the second three numbers. I chuckled again and uncovered them – 24, 33, and 35. I must have looked like a Looney Tunes cartoon character with my eyes bugging out. They were wandering left to right to left to right, focusing on the newspaper and then back to the ticket. They matched. Then I checked it again and again. My eyes weren’t playing tricks on me: the numbers in the paper matched the numbers on my ticket. I was the winner of the $56.37 million dollar jackpot!

My legs felt wobbly as I made my way down to the family room, trying to remain as calm as possible.

“Um, Bill, I think I won the lottery,” I said to my husband.

He looked away from the television and tipped his head toward me. “You’re tired, Shirley. You didn’t win the lottery.”

I had the ticket and the newspaper in my hand and I held it out to him. “I’m pretty sure I did.”

My daughter Sarah was sitting on the couch with him. With a groan, she got up and came over to me, taking the items from my hands. She examined both carefully and then did a double take.

Then she screamed at such a volume that I’m surprised the neighbors didn’t call the police.

“She won! She won! Mom won!”

When she started screaming, I started screaming, as though I hadn’t entirely believed it myself until I had a second opinion. My son Gershon got up to join us, needing to confirm this for himself. When he did, he started screaming as well. Someone listening upstairs might have thought that our family room floor had suddenly turned into a pit of snakes. That would have been a more likely scenario than the one that was actually playing out.

Bill had no choice now but to acknowledge that this was not a product of my tired eyes. He examined the paper and the ticket himself and his face went white. For the next several minutes, all he could say was, “Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?”

This lightheaded moment lasted for at least fifteen minutes. Finally, though, it dawned on us that we had no idea what to do next. Obviously, we couldn’t take the ticket over to the gift shop for redemption. Something told me that they didn’t have fifty-six million dollars in their cash register. Having no better plan, we called Michael Dribin, a former neighbor and the only attorney we knew. Though we used to live only a couple of houses away from each other, we’d never really become friends. We’d say hello at the synagogue on occasion, but that was about it. As a result, it took a minute for Michael to remember us. Of course, what we told him after that guaranteed that he’d never forget us again.

Michael naturally had no experience with the procedures involved in collecting a huge lottery jackpot. However, he said he could make some calls for us and that he would get back to us as soon as he could.

We got off the phone and waited. I was rippling with energy, not sure what to do with myself. I’d had several life defining experiences like my father’s death when I was 18, graduating medical school, having children, but nothing I’d gone through in the past prepared me for something like this.

“We’re going to be millionaires,” I said, shaking my head in wonder.

Gershon seemed especially pleased about this. “Now I can finally get my own car,” said my seventeen year old. Sarah talked excitedly while Bill just seemed dumbstruck. I knew exactly how he felt.

Michael called back an hour later, though it felt as though days had passed. He told us that we had to photocopy the front and back of the ticket, put the original in a safe deposit box, and give him the copy so he could start the verification process with the state. It was too late to do any of this that night, so we had no choice but to set the entire winning-the-lottery thing aside for the rest of the night. It goes without saying that I had more than a little trouble getting to sleep. I took the ticket to bed with me.

The next morning, Bill and I arrived at the Miami Beach Public Library a half-hour before it opened. As we waited, I grew increasingly anxious. I imagined that everyone could tell that we had a massively valuable piece of paper in our possession and that there were muggers lurking behind every corner. When the doors finally opened, we dashed to the photocopy machine only to learn that we couldn’t get the thing to work. In increasingly louder whispers, Bill and I tried to coach each other through the process, but we failed. Finally, feeling horribly conspicuous, we asked for assistance. When two members of the library staff also struggled, I felt a little better. Still, I couldn’t help imagining one of these people – who were probably scrupulously honest – making a mad dash with our ticket.

A third staff member finally got the machine to work for us and we had our photocopies. If any of the people who assisted us had any idea of what we were copying, they gave no indication of it. So much for the neon sign reading “new lottery millionaire” I imagined flashing on and off above my head.

We secured the ticket in our safe deposit box and then brought a copy to Michael. He looked at the document as though it were a rare coin or an alien life form. This was definitely not what he thought he’d be dealing with this week when he woke up yesterday morning. It was Friday morning September 7 and the weekend was rapidly approaching.

“I’ll get to work on this right away,” he said. “Meanwhile, don’t tell anyone about it until I find out more from the state.”

How does one keep this kind of secret completely to one’s self? I couldn’t possibly do it. As soon as I got to a phone, I delivered the news to my mother and sister. My sister responded with the ecstatic screaming I’d become so familiar within the last twelve hours.

My mother didn’t scream, though. She listened to what I was telling her very calmly and then said, “Oh, I knew we would win one day. I always thought it was going to be me.” It became clear to me immediately that she wasn’t talking about winning something in a vague sense; she’d genuinely imagined that one day she would win the lottery. That it had, as she put it, “skipped a generation” just meant that her vision had been off by the slightest bit. This fascinated me, and I’ve subsequently noticed it from many other people with modest financial means. It’s a sense that things are going to get exponentially better soon. I suppose that’s encouraging in a way, even though it’s nothing but an illusion for most. It certainly worked out for my mother.

Work that day was a complete blur. People were of course still speculating about Jackson’s big winner, and I did my best to participate in a few of these conversations to keep suspicion away from me. Fortunately, I had that ever present pile of paperwork to deal with in addition to my usual administrative duties. These gave me something else to concentrate on, and I did my best to throw myself into my work.

The next day was a Saturday and I had lunch scheduled with my friend Cheryl Levin. I’d known Cheryl for a long time, and I was sure she could read something into my fidgeting and distraction. I tried to keep up my end of the conversation, but I’m guessing that I did a lousy job of it and that Cheryl could tell that something was on my mind.

I’d picked Cheryl up for lunch. On the car ride back to her place, she said, “Did you hear that someone from Jackson won the Lotto?”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

She leaned toward me. “Was it you?”

“No,” I said, waving the thought away casually. Inside, though, I felt awful about lying to a good friend. I switched subjects quickly and hoped that Cheryl would think nothing of it.

Bill and I had a dinner date that evening with our friends Kay and Leo Edelsberg, who we’d known forever. As we ate, I wondered if my winning the lottery was going to change our relationship. That would have been devastating to me, and I vowed to do everything in my power to prevent money from driving a wedge between us and our close friends and family.

Not telling them the news was driving me crazy, and I could tell that Bill was equally tormented. We kept sharing wary glances across the table. I thought we were keeping this between us, but when we insisted on picking up the check, we crossed a line.

“Okay, something is going on,” Kay said, looking in my direction.

I glanced up at Bill, and he rolled his eyes, which I took as his permission.

I chuckled and then turned to Kay. “We won the lottery.”

Kay’s eyes exploded out of their sockets. “The big one?”

I shook my head and let out a little squeal. Our friends were all over us at that point. I was so glad they were reacting this way. I was worried they might be jealous or might suddenly feel awkward around us. Of course, they had no problem with our picking up the check after that.

I felt guilty about Cheryl. I called her that night and left a message for her to call back. When she phoned the next day, I was out food shopping.

Bill answered the phone and said, “Shirley feels really guilty that she lied to you.”

“About what?” a bewildered Cheryl replied.

“She won,” Bill said.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” yelled Cheryl.

On Sunday September 9, we had a barbecue to attend at the home of another ER doctor. Why couldn’t this have been one of those weekends where we had nothing to do? For the third time in two days, I had to navigate through a social event without spouting off about our new fortune. In some ways it should have been easier to keep my mouth shut in this setting, since we were with colleagues rather than close friends. However, it turned out to be much harder. The conversation at the barbecue continued to revolve around who bought the winning ticket at our gift shop. One of the doctors in attendance inadvertently took some of the pressure off of me when he suggested to several people at the party that he had a big announcement to make the next day. Word spread immediately around the gathering that this doctor might be  the big winner, and I certainly didn’t do anything to allay those rumors. And there I was wondering what could his secret be?  The next morning, he told everyone that he was stepping down from his role as the Director of the Medical Emergency Room to focus on being an ER attending physician.

I somehow managed to get through that Monday without the big neon sign above my head creating a frenzy at the hospital. Then, shortly after I got home from work, Michael called.

“You’ve been confirmed,” he said, meaning that the state acknowledged that we seemed to have a legitimate claim to the winnings based on the appearance of the photocopy and the written statement we’d included about how I’d bought the ticket. The next step was for us to bring the ticket to the lottery offices in Tallahassee for official confirmation. Michael told Bill that he was booking flights for us for Wednesday morning, and that he would accompany us. When Bill hung up, the four of us started screaming again. Now, we just had to make it until Wednesday.

That was the evening of September 10, 2001. By the next morning, no one was speculating on the Florida lottery winner anymore.

So much has been written already about people’s reactions to 9/11, and certainly there was nothing unusual about my own reaction to the horror. I was about a block away from my house when I heard the news, and I turned around so I could watch some of the coverage at home. It soon dawned on me that the hospital would be on alert during a crisis of this magnitude and I got back in my car to get to my office quickly. As I drove, I felt tremendously guilty. I’d been blessed by an incredible stroke of luck, but many good people had just been killed by fortune’s dark twin.

The lottery wasn’t on anyone’s mind that day. We all tried to push through with our work, but doing so felt harder than it had ever felt before. I remember almost nothing about the day at the hospital except for one notable exchange. One of our patients, Michelle, was receiving a round of treatment for leukemia at the clinic. She’d been undergoing treatment for a while, and her mother Tracye and I had become friendly. Tracye was understandably anxious about her little girl’s condition. That day, I went to visit them at the clinic.

While doctors treated Michelle, Tracye and I sat in pint-sized chairs and talked about what had happened in New York, DC, and Pennsylvania. Tracye, who was already carrying the nearly unbearable burden of her daughter’s illness, seemed positively weighed down by this new tragedy.

“Man, I could really use some good news today,” she said.

Something told me that sharing with Tracye was the right thing to do. We both needed a tiny glimmer of light during that dark day. As guilty as I felt and as concerned as I was about Tracye’s taking it the wrong way, I told her about my winning the lottery.

Tracye screamed and jumped for joy. She hugged and kissed me, and we both began to cry. Tracye told me that this was the best thing she’d heard in a long time and that she thought I was  deserving of it. I had no idea how anyone deserved to win the lottery, but I was thrilled with her reaction. It made this mournful day a little less awful. (Michelle and Tracye’s story has a happy ending. The treatment worked, and Michelle remains cancer-free. She went on to college and has recently started working as a nurse. Tracye and I are still friends ten years later.)

Michael called that night to talk about our trip to Tallahassee. He said there was never going to be a good time to travel over the next few weeks and that we may as well get it over with. All air traffic was grounded for almost a week. We decided to drive instead. Michael was unable to accompany us so he referred us to an attorney friend of his in that area.

Two days later, Bill and I headed off on the most unexpected road trip of our lives. Being a little suspicious that someone might be following us, Bill decided to rent a car instead of using our own. With map in hand (no GPS back then), we made our way on the arduous ten hour drive to Tallahassee with paranoia as our constant companion. What if someone was following us? I kept my eye on the road the whole time, looking for stalkers. We purposely stayed overnight at a Holiday Inn. After all, what kind of millionaire would choose a Holiday Inn? I kept the original ticket clutched tightly in my hand and made sure that the hotel door would never be opened. No room service that night!

The following morning we arrived in Tallahassee and met with Michael’s attorney friend at the lottery office to claim the reward. It was a surreal experience. Though it was business as usual for the lottery workers, I felt like I was a criminal being interrogated in the Twilight Zone.

It was a step-by-step process. First, I was escorted into a cold, non-descript room where I had to tell my story over and over again. Then, a revolving door of people came in and out of the room, grilling me and making me repeat the same details. They said they needed to be certain that the story was consistent, the facts unwavering. It was essential for me to prove that I was the winner and convince lottery officials that I did not steal this ticket from anyone else. That day became the first of more than 500 times I have told my story and I never tire of it.

The winning ticket was taken from me for verification. I was nervous to give it up. The word here is that I was having the fantods. The English language has a word for almost anything. “Fantods” is a great one, a 19th century term, possibly related, dictionaries say, to fantastic and fantasy and fatigue. It perfectly describes the weird state of nervous irritability that overtook me. I was told that the ticket was going to be put under an electron microscope to make sure that it was the real thing, not a copy or a fake. The ticket has precise imbedded microscopic imprints to show that it is genuine. Knowing I was a physician, the examiner let me view the ticket under the microscope. Each ticket has built-in unique markings of squiggly lines, different valleys and distinctive colors the naked eye cannot see.

We were told to go get lunch. Our lawyer regaled us with stories so the time passed more quickly. I was so wound up that I couldn’t eat.

We went back to the offices and while waiting for the confirmation process to be completed, I was cold and shaking. I was afraid that it would turn out to be just a wishful dream. I envisioned a person coming out and saying, “Dr. Press, I’m sorry there’s been a mistake and you are not the winner.”

I kept saying to Bill, “Is this really happening?”

After some time, a man came out and led us to another room. He stated nonchalantly that my ticket was verified. That was it? My heart was pounding and that’s all he said? Yes, that was it.

I was then given stacks of forms to fill out. I was told this was also needed for verification, but could not understand the necessity for so much legalese. This is proof positive why we needed to have an attorney with us.

I was given a choice of taking the winnings over a 20-year period or as a lump sum. The attorney recommended taking the immediate payout. He said if the state were ever to go  bankrupt, it could theoretically default on the long-term payments of the winnings. The reality of that decision quickly took hold as the win was reduced to $28.8 million, approximately 50 percent of the total. Additionally, we had to pay 39 percent or $11.2 million of the reduced amount directly to the federal government in income taxes. And we were lucky to live in Florida, which does not have a state income tax.

After all this, the actual in-pocket amount of winnings came to $17.56 million. We basically received about 31 percent of the winning total. I was surprised, but who’s complaining? It was still much more than my husband and I would ever earn over a lifetime.

Michael had already assembled what seemed to be an army of financial experts prepared to guide us through the process of setting up bank accounts and wiring the money into those accounts. Essentially, we became members of a private bank. As confusing as all of this was, I was in no position to argue. My head was spinning with all this new information. I remember my head throbbing probably from my migraine headaches or alternatively it could have been just stress. It was a whirlwind of data to absorb. I was feeling uneasy about it all.

Ironically, I came home from the lottery office with no money from the winnings. It takes days to access the money, so you leave with pretty much the same funds you had before the win. However, you are given a gigantic fake check as a souvenir.

As soon as I left, the state issued press releases on the radio, newspaper and television. I was informed that the press releases are mandatory in order to claim the winnings. There is the Sunshine Law in Florida, which effectively states that the agencies of the state must provide access to any person to view public records. The Florida Lotto is a business and the people running it urged me to do more publicity than the minimum required. I declined. They told me I was an atypical winner, being a physician, and I could encourage more professionals to buy tickets. I would have preferred no publicity at all because of privacy concerns. Due to September 11, the media’s focus was probably reduced although The Miami Herald wrote a positive story about my winning the lottery. Of course, the horror of the Twin Towers tragedy overshadowed everything and rightfully so. Under normal circumstances, I appreciate publicity for accomplishments as much as the next guy but this was different. It was for a random, public event.

We hired two off-duty Miami Beach police officers to stay outside the house for the first few nights. I went back to work Monday, September 17 – and yes, I still work and never thought of quitting. Being a physician is part of my identity. The entire ER staff was all over me with congratulations and well wishes. For that one day, I felt like Bill Gates.

The doctor who stepped down from his position, came up to me and congratulated me. “You are a better poker player than I am,” he said, for hiding the secret.

“Now don’t you go getting that rich girl look,” teased head ER nurse Gloria McSwain, a longtime friend and colleague, no doubt conjuring up a mental picture of plastic surgery and Botox.

Some people said it was God’s will that I won because of the good I’ve done helping people, like the employee, whose daughter I saved by correctly diagnosing Kawasaki’s Disease. (John Travolta’s son was said to have suffered from this as well.) I do not agree. Far too many people do good work and don’t hit the jackpot. If that was true, we would be a country filled with rich do-gooders and the bad guys would be poor.

There was a lot of reaction at the hospital and at home. Most of it was good and supportive. There were many congratulations, mazel tovs, emails, calls and cards. Even weeks and months later, people would come up to me and hug me. Some wanted my luck to rub off on them.

There was some jealousy as well, which can be expected. I can understand this. Some people said it wasn’t fair that I won because I was already comfortable in life. This is true. Life isn’t fair.

I, on the other hand, actually felt bad about feeling good at the time. This for me was mixed emotions – a familiar feeling. I kept thinking of the victims of Sept. 11 as well as other tragedies of life and here I was a newly cropped millionaire. Ambivalence is commonplace.

And there were lots and lots of solicitations. People came out of the woodwork selling all kinds of stuff like boats, cars, land deals, and oil wells. Stockbrokers promised incredible returns.

And there were troubling incidents as well. Two days after I returned to work, a man called the Pedi-ER. He asked if I was Dr. Press. I did not recognize the voice.

“Who are you?” I said.

“I’m going to get you,” he threatened, then hung up.

I was taken back. Did that really happen? Yes. Am I in danger? Probably. I was in the public domain for that time. Needless to say, this really scared me. I was shaken.

Driving home one night, a couple of weeks later, my brakes failed. I thought I would crash. My husband told me to drive slowly and carefully to the house. Brian, our mechanic, discovered the next day that the brake lines had been tampered with. I hope randomly. I was frightened coming off the heels of the phone call. Again, I was shocked. The person may have wanted just to scare me but I could have been killed. I was put on guard.

Months passed without incident. I sifted through the offers. There were those looking to make a quick buck. Others were truly in need. One of our first requests for money came from Bill’s Aunt Margie and Uncle Bobby. Their daughter Toby, Bill’s first cousin, was fighting lymphoma and needed a stem cell transplant. She was a teacher in Austin, Texas and her health insurance denied coverage for this treatment, then considered experimental. Without a second thought, we immediately guaranteed the payment to the hospital. Tragically, Toby died a few days before the scheduled transplant. We were heartbroken. This was real life, not a made-for-TV movie.

Our priority remains giving first to family and friends. I have always believed in sharing, now more than ever. My list of favorite charities grows longer. It may be surprising, although not to my children, that I’ve yet to go on a wild spending spree. “Be sensible,” I told myself. Sure, I’ve bought a few trinkets and stayed in deluxe hotels when I travel. However, frivolous spending is not in my nature. I often seek out sales when at the mall. I rarely leave a restaurant empty handed. It’s the way I was raised. A life of luxury was pure fantasy. I know what it is to do without.

And I know the role luck plays in everyone’s life. That was clear to me long before six numbers on a piece of paper changed my life forever.