Norcona Doxey – da Vinci Surgery for Endometriosis Success Story

Healthy by association

How support from a family physician helped Norcona Doxey find a solution to her pain

A little over a year ago, Norcona Doxey, now 44, started having an unusual, sharp pain in her lower left side.

“I knew something was off when medication wasn’t helping,” says the Cedar Hill native, wife, and mother of three. “Instead of shrugging it off, I knew where to turn.”

Doxey met with her family physician of more than 20 years, Judith Werner, DO, independently practicing family medicine physician on the medical staff at Methodist Mansfield Medical Center.

“I’ve been going to Dr. Werner for as long as I can remember,” Doxey says. “She’s my husband’s doctor, and she was the doctor for our kids when they were just newborns. If anyone could give me some answers, it was she.”

Answering questions

After seeing Doxey, Dr. Werner prescribed an all-liquid diet paired with antibiotics to soothe and treat this mystery pain. When the pain came back, however, Dr. Werner suspected endometriosis.

“Endometriosis is a tissue that grows outside of the uterus and can cause scar tissue as well as cysts,” Dr. Werner says.

To confirm, Dr. Werner referred Doxey for a colonoscopy with Anna-Maria Toker, MD, independently practicing colorectal surgeon on the hospital’s medical staff.

“My husband had recently gone to Dr. Toker for his colonoscopy, and it put my mind at ease knowing that she was already familiar with our family,” Doxey says. While her husband’s colonoscopy came out clear, hers confirmed that she did, in fact, have endometriosis. Dr. Toker suggested a minimally invasive robotic procedure with the da Vinci® Surgical System to remove it.

The little things

Since the robotic surgery in January, pain is a thing of Doxey’s past. “I’m just thankful — thankful for my family, thankful to have a doctor that really knows me, and pretty thankful to be eating real food again too!” she says.

From the fall 2013 edition of Shine magazine.