Hello friends,
It's been a while since I posted.  I see we have so many new followers, so I will reintroduce myself.  My name is Colleen, my DrH, Ben, is an intern in Emergency Medicine at the local county hospital.  I am a 32-year-old SAHM of 2 boys, ages 4.5 and 3, and we also added a baby girl to our family in October.  We got pregnant (purposefully) and had our oldest, the first month of the first year of med school (which we completed here in Fort Worth, and didn't have to move for residency), so we have done the young family thing the entire med school/residency journey. 

For the last 3 years of residency, I also ran a Texas licensed in-home preschool.  However, we closed it in May when Ben started bringing in a salary, having saved up enough money from my income and student loans to live for 18 months at the same standard of living until Ben could start moonlighting in October/November 2012.  For a little extra money, I do still keep one child.  He is kinda part of our family now; I have had him for 3 years, and he and my oldest are only months apart in age.  To close my self-summary, we now have less than 2.5 years until we are done.  No fellowships or additional specialties.  Just Emergency Medicine.  Fine.by.me.  :)

As I have been following everyone else's posts, I have to say that while we certainly have our challenging moments, ER is a cake walk compared to what a lot of you have been going through.  This is part of the reason I haven't posted for a bit.  I feel bad posting my trials, when for the most part, I feel pretty blessed and am no more stressed than any other stay-at-home mom with a working husband (although sometimes my working husband does have crazy hours and works a little more than most).

This week (and for many weeks now), Ben is studying for his first benchmark of the Emergency Medicine Board Exam.  He takes it tomorrow.  From what I understand, other specialties take this exam at the beginning of their intern year, but since ER residents can moonlight (and we have planned on Ben doing so), they take this exam later in the first year.  This exam is looked upon as a way to gauge that the resident has a minimum level of understanding of Emergency Medicine - enough that his Academic Advisor would recommend him to be eligible to moonlight.  (Sidenote:  That is another bonus to ER:  By the time we are done with residency, we can have a nice chunk paid toward student loans AND our schedule easily allows him to moonlight a few extra shifts a month.  For the 31 days of March, for example, Ben only works 20 10-hour or less shifts, and 2 12-hour shifts, leaving him 9 days off.  There are 9 weekend days in the month of March, so this month he essentially gets the same amount of  time off as any other Mon-Fri job.)

My point is that he is home a lot more than many other resident husbands.  And it drives me crazy.  Is that horrible?

The boys and I have a daily and a weekly routine going on that we kinda live by.  Now I must confess that I can be a little obsessive-compulsive about routines.  They give structure to a day that could very easily all mush together into a point where I become a bon-bon eating, soap watching, lazy bum.  I don't want to become that person.  And it's a slippery slope, people.  Especially with a still fairly young infant.  I'm tired.  A lot.

But I have never been one to sit around and be lazy; I just get this guilt complex and all the things I need to be doing loom over my mind in threatening thought-bubbles until I can't take the pressure any more.  I have to get up and be productive.

So while I am buzzing around the house washing dishes, folding laundry, mopping floors, feeding babies, hosting preschool playgroup, refereeing screaming 4-year-old arguments, giving potty assistance, trying to work out, teaching one son to read and the other to learn his letters and sounds, or whatever else I find to keep busy, it royally annoys me to watch Ben sit on the couch FOR HOURS playing a rated M War game that is both mesmerizing and highly inappropriate for the impressionable youngsters running around.  Not to mention that it is 50 decibels too loud and so my whole normally peaceful house feels like a war zone.  And I can't take it.  I hate it.  Especially because if any of those above-mentioned activites interrupt or infringe upon Ben's inherent right to enjoy his game, he gets irritated.  With Me.  Whaaaa...?

Of course, I have suggested that we move his system into his office, out of the main area of the house - the room you have to walk through to get to the kitchen or the dining room or to go in the backyard.  His response?  "Well, I want to be with you guys..."  Uhhhhhh....anyone else see the faulty logic in that statement?  I could walk in front of him in nothing but red stiletttos when he is playing XBox 360 and I doubt I would get his attention.  Apparently, our definition of quality time is starkly different.  In mine, a grunt in my general direction when I ask what he would prefer for dinner, does not suffice.

His love for playing this game for hours and watching TV at deafening levels in the living room to take breaks from studying or decompress after work has created friction with me for more than just the obvious reasons.  In spite of his claim that he wants to "be with us," his attitude about coming home has turned into what seems like a feeling of entitlement on his part.  As in, "Ben the Provider is home (insert chest-beating here).  All my minions must now make themselves quiet or scarce, and do my bidding as I holler at you from my chair to bring me something beckon you."  (We actually just had to have it out about him turning off the TV and eating dinner at the table with us.  That bad habit has stopped, thankfully.)  This X Box example is just the biggest example of an attitude that SOMETIMES, yet MORE AND MORE FREQUENTLY rears its ugly head.  (It should be noted that Dr. Ben isn't ALWAYS like this.  Most of the time he is very enjoyable and does spend time with all of us.)

We have long since agreed that when he is out of residency and working, he will have a man-cave, preferably a basement, where he can sleep when he has worked nights and play his games and decompress or whatever he needs to do, without infriging on the peace and quiet of the rest of the house. So here's the point of my rant:

1)  Has anyone else noticed your husband's personality changing as he gets closer and closer to completing residency? As if your desires or daily needs are not as significant as his?  As if when he gets home, all activites are subject to his desires and he should not have to be inconvenienced in any way?

2)  Is this something Dr. Wives just have to learn to deal with and combat?  If so, does anyone have any tricks?

Chick Flicks for Call Nights

PBS series Downton Abbey
A walk to remember
While you were Sleeping
Return to Me
Never Been Kissed
Ever After
Notebook
Wedding Planner
Just Like Heaven
Holiday
Leap Year
Letters to Juliet
Julie and Julia, Killers
Couples Retreat
You Again
The Help
Midnight in Paris
Crazy Stupid Love
BBC made a newer version of Emma (I think in 2009)
Sweet Home Alabama
The Blind Side
The Wedding Date
She's Out of My League
Bridesmaids
Princess Bride
Love Actually
The Devil Wears Prada
Shakespeare in Love
The Big Year
13 going on 30
Pride and prejudice A&E version
Clueless
High School Musicals
Stella
Zoolander
Beaches
Bring it On
Life is Beautiful
Moulin Rouge
Romeo and Juliet
Sleepless in Seattle
Mona Lisa Smile
Fools Rush in
Can't Hardly Wait
Blue Crush
An Education
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
The really old version of Yours, Mine and Ours
Just Go with it
That Thing You Do
Waiting for Forever
Benny and June
Mama Mia

Please add any more you can think of in the comments!

Excerpt from novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand 1957

“I quit when medicine was placed under State control some years ago,” said Dr. Hendricks. “Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I could not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the ‘welfare’ of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, but ‘to serve.’ That a man’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards—never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness at which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in the operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.”

8 months

And I will no longer technically be a resident's wife. But is being a fellows wife any different? I'm guessing not, so I'll consider myself a resident's wife for another YEAR and 8 months. Right now we are on an away rotation with DrH. It's interesting how little I realize I need when I'm away from all of my belongings. I took all the kids out of school and we are trying to do all their work from our little apartment here. They are beginning to bounce off the walls. Arrgggg!!!!

Lives of Dr Wives' Book List

and recommended authors


Beat those call night blues with favorite books hand picked by doctor wives:

Book List

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

These is my words

Sarah's quilt

The Star Garden

Rapunzel's Revenge by Hale

Calamity Jack by Hale

The Princess Academy

Ender's Game

The Maze Runner (trilogy)

The Giver, Gathering Blue, and The Messenger

Books of Bayern series (Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born)

Guernsey Literary Society

The Help

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Bossypants by Tina Fey

The Forgotten Garden

Discovery of Witches

Pillars of the Earth

Molokai

Last Lecture

The Girls from Ames

Potato Peel Pie Society

Phillippa Gregory

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Blind Your Ponies by Stanley West Gordon

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde,

In the Garden of Beasts

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Red Princess Series by Lisa See

River of times series by Lisa Bergren

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Pathfinder by Orson Scott card

Water for Elephants

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

The Girl who Played with Fire

The Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest
Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich

My Sister's Keeper
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Eat Pray Love
Bridgett Jones Diary

Author List

Anne Perry

Emily Griffin

Jane green and Jennifer Werner

Nicholas sparks

Shannon Hale

Sharon Shinn

Dresden Files

Marr and Armstrong

Melissa Marr

Jim Butcher

Sharon Shinn

Kelley Armstrong

Karen White
Malcome Gladwell

 

an intern's december

the guy who was in charge of making December's schedule is kind of a joke.  he had a couple of months to prepare it and guess what?  no schedule until Nov. 30th around 10pm.  yep.  and even though he had plenty of lead time, he *still* managed to screw it up.  big time.  look, i know that the new hour restrictions for interns were confusing and annoying to figure out at first.  but it's DECEMBER and they've got a pretty "easy" way of handling the whole thing.  so, looking at the schedule we immediately noticed 3 things:

1) he scheduled Orthoman to be on call the day of his brother's wedding.  after sending out emails and talking to people for months, he had arranged for his one weekend off to be that weekend.  while we weren't surprised, it was really annoying.  he did, however, schedule the following weekend as his "off" weekend.

2) he had illegally scheduled Orthoman.  so not only was he going to be on call during the weekend he was supposed to be off, but he had done so in a way that legally couldn't happen.

3) he was on call Christmas Eve AND New Year's Eve

when you combined #2 and #3, it meant that there was no way to "fix" the schedule.  it had been bungled up in so many ways that there was no repairing it.  after much discussion and debate, one of the REALLY awesome and nice 2nd years took the pager for Orthoman and covered for him.  and guess what?  they let him KEEP the next weekend off!  he offered to take call, but the guy said that since Orthoman was working both holidays he should enjoy the weekend off.  to say that i felt a profound sense of gratitude wouldn't do my feelings justice.

the wedding weekend was really fun, but stressful because he took a red eye Friday night so he could be there Saturday and we came home Sunday.  it was short and busy, but not awful.  we even managed to get some "hang out time" Sunday night after the girl went to bed.  when he was off the following weekend we did a lot of "family" stuff.  the girl was beside herself - her daddy was there for 2 mornings when she woke up!  at one point on Saturday, he was putting on his shoes to take the dog for a walk and she came up to him, gave him a HUGE hug and kiss and said, "bye daddy.  be a good doctor!  love you!"  all without any prompting.  she's already used to this sort of lifestyle i guess.  when he told her he wasnt going to the hospital, she got so excited that she started jumping up and down.  it was heart warming and heart breaking at the same time.

given our recent struggles, it wasnt the easiest weekend.  he didnt feel like going on a date; he wanted to spend time as a family.  it stung, and i was mad, but we talked through it later and i actually ended up agreeing with a lot of his reasons (you're 7.5 months pregnant - you'll be miserable sitting in a movie seat for 2+ hours, save the money for Christmas next weekend, little girl was glued to his hip and begging to snuggle, etc.).  January has a lot of "free" weekends for him so we're planning on doing a lot of "couple things" next month.

we also had this conversation:

me: so you're on call Xmas Eve.  is it safe for me to assume that you dont have any days off since you didnt get to use any vacation time?

orthoman: sorry, no vacation time at all.  we'll have saturday morning and all of sunday once i get home.  that'll be it.

you'll notice that in this (already really long) post i havent mentioned my feelings about his being on call for both holidays and not getting time off.  well, that's really because i dont have strong feelings about it.  i completely expected he would work in Xmas and New Years - he's a intern AND a surgeon.  December is one of those really busy months for surgeons because people are trying to use up the last of their benefits.  so clinic is ridiculous and the ORs are running full speed.  there's also a lot of drinking, partying and all around stupid behavior occurring so the ERs get really busy.  we talked about this LOOOOOONG ago, before medical school even.  people get sick year round without regards to the day on the calendar.

we're also fairly religious and attend services on most Sundays rather than the High Holy Days.  and, as a history nerd, i also dont feel obligated to celebrate on the 25th because what we're really doing is hijacking the festival of Saturnalia (see HERE).  so, rather than be a slave to the calendar, i've always felt pretty flexible about celebrating with my family at a time that best suits us all.  well, it turns out we got an extended christmas present!  Thursday night, about an hour before he was due to come home, Orthoman found out he had Friday off!  it was a complete surprise to all of us.  he stayed late to finish his dictations and when he came home he surprised me with the big news.  after looking at the schedule, he called someone and found out he had MONDAY off too!  so even though he was working on Xmas Eve, we got 2 WHOLE DAYS with him!

i cant tell you how incredible this weekend has been.  our Xmas was small, but the train set we got our little girl has made her the happiest girl in the world.  we spent all Sunday playing it and most of Monday too.  We stayed up late every night to talk and hang out - just the two of us.  i feel like it's given me "breathing room" in the marriage.  i dont the same sense of urgency or perseverance that i did just a few weeks ago (does that even make sense?). we've been able to relax and calm down.  we've had time to remember that we're not just "partners" or spouses, but friends too.  and yes, there was even some major flirting going on.

any rough moments were quickly smoothed over.  i didnt feel burdened, as if i was carrying the entire load on my shoulders.  and really, what better Christmas gift could i get?

Financial Peace or lack there of

I can pinpoint where it all went awry.  We had meticulously saved all of intern year for our big move across the country.  We lived within our means, out of little envelopes of cash.  We had only student loan debt.  Credit cards were debt free and only used for online purchases and paid right back.

We decided to buy a house at our residency location to build equity and so forth.  We knew we'd be there 4 years.  We paid cash for our down payment and the move.  Our savings was gone, but it didn't matter because we would have 4 calm years in a low cost of living area to rebuild.

This was a great plan until hubby's first day of work.  He instantly learned that his "match" was not a "fit."  He was soon offered a position in another specialty somewhere else.  It was what he wanted to do.  We had no funds left and took a leap of faith and used the credit card to pay for the move.

In our new, high cost of living location did not give us any wiggle room in the budget.  The credit card balance kept getting higher as I had to charge things like groceries in order to have the cash for the minimum payment that had gotten enormous.  This sort of thing cannot not go on forever, but we felt absolutely trapped.

Fortunately, family came to our rescue and partially bailed us out.  What has been very hard is to break the cycle.  Cut our expenses to the point where the cash we pay toward our credit card balance comes from extra money, not grocery or rent money.

The whole thing has made me a very unhappy person over the last few years.  I hate to be so unhappy when I have so many blessings I should be happy about.

As you could tell I'm sure from my last blog entry, something had to give.  Since then we have attained our first financial goal in our "get out of debt" plan.  I feel ecstatic!  I am happy that we have a plan and that it has actually been working too!!!!  We have made leaps and bounds in the last few months to combat our personal debt situation. 

Before, when we were in such great financial shape, we had followed the advise given by Dave Ramsey.  I have compiled all my notes from his advise and will be putting them on my personal blog to share with anyone interested.

We have a goal of being credit card debt free by end April!  Just in time to save for our move for fellowship.