Encourager

I went away for a while to try to get more organized at home and refocused. I'm writing again now and hope to make it a more regular event as time allows!

We are now at the end of October and 4.5 weeks into the required 12 weeks of internal medicine. We are surviving! We were warned that internal medicine and surgery rotations are the longest and involve a taxing schedule. What we weren't told about is how to plan when to do these rotations. We happened to pick internal medicine over the holidays. WRONG CHOICE! When you are on an inpatient rotation you are not guaranteed holidays off, but if you are on an outpatient rotation you do get those days off because most clinics are closed then. (Keep that in mind if you aren't to year 3 or 4 yet in school!) Lesson learned: do those rotations in the months that don't have the big holidays.

Mark's schedule this month is call every fourth day. This means he goes in around 6am (give or take an hour) and stays until midnight. He has to stay longer to finish any admit that walks in the door up to 11:59pm. He gets home after that and then turns right around and goes back around 6am again. That's right people. No post call day! In fact they only get a few days off the entire month. They round every morning including weekends. If one of their 3 days off during the month happens to have a class that day, they are still required to attend class.

What I am learning as a wife this rotation is to be an encourager. These are long hours and some cases are sad and do not have a pleasant prognosis. During this time our men need sleep, food, and to be able to just relax when at home. Encourage them!

Family Outpatient

Hooray, peds rotation is over! It has been a nice weekend so far having Mark HOME! He is only going to be a 5 minute drive from our house this next month for his family rotation. Woot! Looks like it will be a fairly smooth September. We're also getting a car this month so we won't have to be sharing one car. (For those of you who don't know we have had 1 car since medical school started. It's a Honda Accord and its a great car. However, I used to drop him off and pick him up a lot from school. Or he would ride his bike, but it gets to be over 100 degrees regularly here and riding the bike didn't last too long. Two babies later...we still have 1 car. If he needs the car I'm at home ALL DAY. So if you couldn't tell I'm pretty excited that we're getting another vehicle!) My grandmother is letting us "buy" her car. It's going to be our pimp ride. A 1995 buick century. That's right folks, that's what the doctors are driving these days ;) Thank you parents for polishing it up and bringing it to us soon! When they get here we're also going to do Disneyland for the first time since we've lived here! I am probably the most excited out of my family. I haven't been there since I was young and I'm fully expecting greatness and magic.

Residency Countdown: I just realized that in less than a year applications have to be in. AH! Ladies if you are just starting medical school and you want it to go by fast...have kids...lol! I honestly don't know where the time goes anymore.

That's all for now, I'm exhausted and need to go to bed.

Call

This month has been Mark's first experience on call overnight in the hospital. He has been leaving the house around 6am and getting home around noon the next day. I'm not quite sure that I've really felt the full effect of him being gone so long because I have had my mother in law or my mom stay the night each night he's been gone. It just happened to work out that they were visiting! I know I'm going to need to get used to the fact that I will be spending nights home alone with the kids. I'm curious as to how much over night call residency requires compared to when you are an attending. Also if it differs between academic hospitals vs. community, county hospitals etc. Anyone have any input?

A Pleasant Surprise

On Friday, my sister-in-law called me. When I saw her name on the cell phone I had a gut feel about what she was going to say. Her husband had been accepted into medical school. The same one my husband attends, and his first day is Thursday! It's been a whirlwind of a weekend for them having to pick up and move 1,000 miles away with less than a week before class starts for him. I'm so excited that I'll have some family close by. I hope that we are able to give them an idea of what they're in for the next couple years!

I printed a list of orthopedic residency programs off of the AMA website. I printed them by state. Now I'm going through and looking at the websites. It is a weird feeling making judgments about a program based on how well their site is put together and what message it brings across. That is all we have to go on for most places though. If I were a program I would be putting a lot of time and money into that!

Whiny

This last week I noticed everyone has been irritable. My daughter had her routine vaccinations. Irritable. My son is nearing two years old. Irritable. My husband and I are still trying to get our home organized and the kids to sleep through the night. Irritable! I'm not sure what my hormones are doing lately either. It's been seven months since I had my daughter and I still feel moody off and on. Also we found out that next year we most likely won't get enough money for school and still allow me to stay home with the kids. That is constantly in the back of my mind. I guess I hadn't prepared myself for the option of having to go back to work during medical school. I know that other women out there are working and raising children on their own and they are so strong! Me. I'm whiny. I hope that something works out so I can continue to be a stay at home mom. But ultimately I need to just be a little stronger and know that I'm blessed to have my husband and two healthy babies.

On another note...
I started really looking into different orthopedic surgery residencies around the country. If anybody has anything good or bad to say about different programs please let me know!

Where Have I Been?

Whew! I'm back.

Our family was staying with my parents for 3 weeks in June. When we came back home we packed up our little condo, and moved into a house. My husband and I attended post second year requirement for the occupation of medicine (PROM) and boards bash! We also got his Step 1 scores back.

~It was so amazing to be able to see family and friends for an extended period of time. I want my kids to know their grandparents and vice versa! We had a great time.

~Our new home is such a blessing! It's twice the size of our old place. In a great neighborhood close to the medical center. Everyone has their own bedroom, and there's a large backyard!

~Mark worked very hard on planning boards bash. As class president this is one of their responsibilities. Its basically a time to have fun and celebrate step one and two years of medical school being over with. Most classes in the past have gone on a dinner cruise...blah. :) My hubby had a great idea that turned out super fun! He rented a bunch of carnival inflatables and had a barbecue. There were water slides, jousting, human foos ball and a bungee run. There were contests and prizes too. In my opinion that was so much better than a dinner cruise haha. Esp. since we had PROM too. That was also fun. It was a really nice dinner with speakers and presentations and a time of reflection.

~step one score: The Lord blessed all of Mark's hard work. His score is a really good one, and we can't be more thankful!

Ok so now:

Mark is finishing up his first month of MS3. This month he has been doing pediatric outpatient. It's a nice schedule with no weekends. He is learning how to see pediatric patients in the clinic setting and is doing well. It has been a good month for him to have a good schedule because of moving and getting settled into our new place. Next month is pediatric inpatient which won't be as cushy ;) In my spare time I'm looking up places for him to do his externships next year. So far he is thinking orthopedic surgery still, and thanks to his score he feels comfortable going for that specialty!

I'm really liking this year better than last. I'm not pregnant for once! lol. Mark is enjoying hands on learning. We are also so much closer to applying for residency and graduating. The kids are falling into a good routine, and we're just happy to be finally here in year 3. yay!

My Thoughts From This Week

I haven't really talked about my kids a lot yet, but my oldest is 19 months and my little girl is 5 months. I just had to write and express my excitement that I am finally getting some sleep at night! My son goes to bed around 1830 or 1900. My daughter does now too! I only have to feed her once in the night around 0300 or 0400. It's simply wonderful. Her naps aren't all that great yet, but I'm cool with it if I can catch 4-5 hours in a row in the night. woo hoo.

On a side note, I've been totally busy trying to clean our house do laundry and pack for our family of 4. We leave tomorrow night for my parents house. Yet another plane ride. Yet another hope and prayer sent up that it will go smoothly and that there will be extra seats so the car seats can go on board. It makes things easier when the kids are in their seat instead of in my seat jumping up and down. Also, we'll be traveling with my husband, yay!

I always pack the skip hop double duo diaper bag the same every flight.

• enough diapers for both kids for half a day
• two travel wipes cases
• infant tylenol given 30 minutes before take off ;) don't want those ears hurting
• my bebe au lait hooter hider to feed the girl
• rice cakes for the boy to eat on take off and landing (keep the pressure equalized!)
• thomas the tank engine laptop for the boy
• crayons and a surprise book to color for the boy
• an extra outfit for the girl (i just know the blow out will happen on the flight)
• jackets for the boy and the girl
• my wallet
• chapstick
• cell phone
• digital camera
• empty sippy cup to fill on flight
• cell phone charger!
• soft rattly toy for the girl to play with
• a pen
• my planner
• diaper changing pad
• zip lock bag for the liquids

Tomorrow night I'll have help putting the kids to bed and get to see some close friends :) YAY!

It's been super hard the last couple months with Mark being gone SO much. He's been under lots of pressure. The last 3 weeks have been all testing from in house exams to mock boards. He is using his mock board scores instead of class rank when applying to residency. I'm so proud of him though for being able to help most nights with bath and bedtimes and making sure the kids and I know that he loves us. I'm excited to get step 1 over with and get started in on year 3. I think that things will change so much over the next couple years. I can't wait to watch Mark discover what part of medicine he loves and learn what he really wants to pursue for residency. So far he has thought orthopedic surgery. He's been working with ortho for a year and has presented research and loves scrubbing into surgeries. Waiting for his scores for the boards to come back is going to be anxiety ridden. We know that a score can make or break you for an ortho residency. Also our little man will turn 2 this year and the first year of our daughters life is nearly half way through. Soon we'll be seeing her crawl, walk and begin to talk! Tomorrow begins a resting period for me and a new chapter in this journey of medicine as a family.

End of MSII

Today is Friday. There is officially one week left of MS year II. I can hardly believe we have reached the half way point and now we have to start thinking about away rotations and residency! Mark has scheduled his exam for the end of June in our home town. We'll be staying with my parents so that I can have help with the kids while he is out 8-5 studying. Being the "think into the far future" "plann-er ahead-er"of the relationship I have already printed out some instructions and requirements for away rotations.

Any suggestions on how to research away rotations? Is it possible that they could harm you more than help you for residency??

How It Started

I graduated from nursing school in 2005. I had been married to my best friend from high school for a year and a half. He was applying to medical school for the first time. When he didn't get in anywhere he applied again for the following year as well as to graduate school for engineering. During that year of waiting to receive interviews we got pregnant with our first child who would be due in the Fall of 2007. When we hadn't heard that he'd been accepted anywhere by March of 2007 we thought he would definitely be doing engineering. We'd live 30 minutes from both of our parents while he went to school for his masters. I could keep working at my same job and have my parents watch the baby when he was born. We had things figured out.

In April we got a letter..."we'd like to interview you for medical school, blah blah blah."  An interview? In April? That was a late interview! He went. He interviewed and time passed. We didn't hear a thing until June 18th when I answered the phone call saying Mark would start medical school in two months. Yikes!

Within a month we were moving to a new state. I had to find a new job. We had to find a new church. AND!! I had to find a new doctor whom I liked to deliver our baby when I was already twenty something weeks along. We were very excited, but a little nervous too.

Now here we are in 2009. Mark is a week away from being done with his 2nd year and USMLE step one is at the end of June. We now have 2 babies, 14 months apart. I am a SAHM. Mark is his class' president, and has been doing orthopedic research for almost a year.

I wanted to start this blog for those of us out there who are married to a man in medicine! We definitely need to connect with each other since we go through the same sort of things. I love my life. It's unique and challenging and has some extremely rough times, yet it's an exciting journey.

I'd like to hear your ideas on how to help support your man with boards coming up so soon! What are some things they can do to get a break from studying and get refreshed and recharged in a small amount of time so they can get back to studying :)

I would also like to hear some of your stories on how everything medicine started for you!