Beach

The last couple weeks we got to get out of town for a little bit. We drove 5 hours to visit Mark's grandparents. It was fun! We visited family and stayed in a hotel for 2 nights. It was our first trip that was more fun and relaxing than stressful and draining because of the kids. It's nice that my 2 babies can walk, communicate, eat real food and drink from sippy cups! Makes things so much more enjoyable.

This weekend we went to the beach! My sister lives a 1 minute walk from the beach and we stayed with her for a night. Ahhhh! We also got to see some good friends and my parents.

Mark has finished his first week on ob/gyn. He is doing well but it's just not his cup o' tea. Some of the cases are discouraging. He's looking forward to his surgery rotation next. We're still plowing away on his away rotation applications. Background checks, copies of BLS cards, immunization records, etc. Still trying to decide his second place he should rotate. Any suggestions? He's trying to do something that isn't on the west coast.

2010 & 3rd Years Downhill Slope

Thank you God! We're in the final half of year three and starting to actually fill out away rotation applications! The last couple months were BUSY. My husbands grandfather was diagnosed with cancer so we made the 5 hour drive to see him back in November. We spent the holidays with family and friends. We also celebrated our 6 year anniversary by spending a couple nights away while my parents watched the kids. (fun!) It was our first official nights away from them, can you believe that? That is what happens when you live far away from grandparents I guess. Our daughter also turned 1. I am officially a mom of a 2 and 1 year old! Exciting stuff let me tell you.

We spent most of December plowing through the endless list of orthopedic residency programs. For each one I googled the location city data as far as crime rates, education, weather, schools. I needed to be sure that I could survive and thrive in each location for 80 plus hours a week without my husband around. I looked at rental websites to make sure we could find a place to live that we could afford and checked which areas were most family friendly. I even made a note by each program that had an airport close by with a direct flight available to my parents location!
As far as for the programs themselves, there were some that made you do away rotations for months at a time in another state during your 5 years. Not okay with that! I mean how is that supposed to work for a family? I crossed those programs off the list. Others that didn't make the keeper list were programs that had only accepted residents from a certain location. I spent time going over the benefits each provided. Medical, dental, life and disability. Free meals on call days/nights, free parking. So, so, so many things to consider. My hubby wants to apply to 70 programs. yikes. So far, after months of this I have 46 on the keep list. Ugh!

We are now filling out applications for 4th year away rotations. We're shooting for two away rotations at 4 weeks each over this upcoming summer. Hopefully, if all goes well, we can get the dates that we want and the programs we want. Unfortunately neither of them participate in VSAS so we have a lot of printing out, filling out and mailing stuff going on.

I'm in the process of beginning potty training with my son. This has been harder than expected. (any advice out there is appreciated) I'm also trying to be a regular at my churches mom's group. It's for moms and their kids under 5. We get together once a week and let the kids play. We pray for each other and for the kids. Once a month is mom's night out which I have yet to go to. Hopefully this month! It's hard when M is gone weird hours to plan for that. Plus we've been getting sick a lot! Also, I'm in the process of starting to volunteer at our church nursery. It feels good to finally have the time and energy to do more than stay in my house and feed/change and entertain my kids. Honestly, for me the whole first year of my daughters life was just getting through each day making sure they were taken care of and that the house was in decent shape.

M is on ob/gyn next, and I'm looking forward to hearing about his first delivery. I wonder if its an advantage that he has already seen labor twice?

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!