They're Heerrree

The interns are here, the interns are here!  The welcoming activities are officially in full swing and I'm interested to see how everything all turns out. 

We kicked things off with a resident sponsored welcome dinner last Thursday that we almost didn't make it to.  In typical expect-the-unexpected medical fashion, Dr Love got pounded with a stream of hospital admits that afternoon which had him running all over the place in addition to his regular floor work and was thus 2 hours late leaving the hospital.  As a result he came home tired, a bit grumpy, we were both hungry and 2 hours late for the welcome dinner.  We pondered if it was really worth going to at that point (would anyone still be there?) and I made the point that if anyone would understand the impact a bad day at the hospital can have on your previously laid plans it would be this group.  Despite all my logic of why we should cut our losses and stay home, Dr Love's team player attitude won and we made the drive over to the resident's house hoping there would be food and people still there.  Considering only 2 of the interns RSVP'd that they were going to attend the dinner, I was pleasantly surprised to see that 6 out of the 9 came and were still there several hours in.  Hooray we didn't scare them off!  Though really only 1/3 of them RSVP'd?  Come on folks maybe I'm old fashion but I've always thought work related events warranted higher levels of etiquette.  Rant aside we did have a nice time chowing down on carb-a-licious food and chatting with everyone.  A number of the incoming interns had that deer in the headlights look that I remember well from last year as you're the new kid on the block surrounded by people you don't know (though you will soon see them more than your own family) and you're about to embark on a huge journey.

Saturday was a bitter sweet day as we attended the graduation ceremony for the current 3rd year residents (even though they are here through the end of the month).  I'm sad to see several of them go.  This group played a big role in recruiting us to come here.  They were the first ones we socialized with and came to know.  They're strong doctors and good leaders.  They've been a valuable asset to the program and I'm sad to see them go. 

With this changing of the guard comes LOTS of other changes as well.  During graduation one of the attendings noted that Dr Love's class will go down in history as the last "true" intern year.  As some of you know the restrictions on interns have undergone a major overhaul.  Recently the AC.GME (THE grand poobas of ALL the residency programs in the US) decided that interns are now limited to 16 hour shifts, which is down from the 30 hour limit that was previously in place.  I can only imagine how prospective interns across the country breathed a sigh of relief since 30 hour shifts are not fun but this change has further reaching implications, particularly the necessity for a night float system.  Since what previously was one shift has now been split into two, the rotations had to be reworked in order to implement a night shift (aka night float).  I already hate call nights where I have to spend the evening alone, now there's going to be a whole month where I won't see him in the evenings (or possible at all) 5 days a week.  SIDENOTE: I really hope we're either pregnant by the time night float comes, though I guess it could make scheduling an IUI easier since he'd be free during the day.  Ah the joys of trying to work life around the demands of medicine. END SIDENOTE.

In addition to the change in work hours, the AC.GME also decided that interns need "close supervision."  No big deal right, except that the powers that be with the family medicine association interpreted "close supervision" as recommended in room supervision for a time period to be decided by the residency programs.  This means that for a certain period of time an intern can not see a patient, do a simple history and physical, anything, without a senior resident or attending present.  In essence they need a babysitter.

The current residents joke about giving the interns backpack leashes or creating intern-bjorns and just carrying them around everywhere.  The administration has assured everyone that they are working on a solution to make this babysitting time as short as possible but so far there's been no word on how they plan to do that. 

So we have smashed 2 residents into 1 and split what used to be 1 shift into 2 which equals (if my math is correct) more work for everyone.  Buckle in cause this ride just got more interesting.  In the end I'm sure it will turn out fine (if it's not fine it's not the end) but in the mean time I fear things are going to be a bit messy. 

Is there a doctor in the house?

Source: Google Images

When I leave work at the end of the day, my work is done.  No one calls me up or sends me text messages asking about VDL's, what lots of land are trading at, or if the bills got processed that month.  When I leave work that world is behind me.  Dr. Love isn't quite as lucky.

The good thing about Family Medicine is there are always people who need your skills.  The bad thing about Family Medicine is there are always people who need your skills.

There never will be a shortage of colds, flu, weird body aches, gastrointestinal troubles, and questions about ears/eyes/noses/throats/feet/etc.  Most likely your friends and family will be afflicted with the maladies and who will they come to for help?  Their friendly personal doctor. 

The calls for help or answers will unavoidably come at the end of a 30 hour call shift, in the middle of the first day off in weeks, in the morning of the one day you get to sleep in, or after a really bad day in clinic.  Inevitably they will call when your stretched to the breaking point and the last thing you want to do is have one more medical problem to solve.  They're your loved ones though, your friends and family, and you can't tell Sister Sue that you are not able to listen to her questions about Niece Janie's earache because you're too tired.  In reality though all you want to do is have a day where you can put medicine on the back burner and not think about it.  So what's a doc to do?

Do you set ground rules about when and how often you'll take questions and consults for friends/family/acquaintances outside of regularly scheduled business hours?

Do you bite the bullet and be at their beckon call accepting that it's just part of this crazy ride called medicine?

Does the fact that your friends and family have suffered through the trials and tribulation of med school along with you (though not to the same extent) entitle them to take part in the benefit of the end result?

How do you keep a balance between work and life?

I'm not sure there's a clear cut solution to this but I know the conundrum has weighed on Dr. Love lately. He wants to help but needs, heck we both need, time where he can step away from medicine for a bit and just be him without someone needing his attention.  I know the family doesn't do it with the malicious intent to take advantage of him but rather they usually have something they're concerned/curious about and naturally the first person you're going to think of is your buddy/brother that you have on speed dial. 

I think I should start working on an "off duty" light for him to signal when he is no longer taking medical questions for the day.  Is there an app for that? 

Bringing Home Buster

This past weekend my buddy, Buster turned 4 years old...in human years that is... though it was only 10 months ago that he found his way into our home.

Before I got married I would occasionally peruse Petfinder looking at the pictures of all the cute dogs up for adoption.  Mostly these would be days when I was bored or needed a warm-fuzzy boost as I knew I wasn't in a position to be a good pet owner.  Between work, my social life, and the fact that I only had a tiny patio, I didn't feel like it would be fair to bring a dog home when I couldn't devote the time or attention it would need.  So I was a responsible adult, put my wishes aside and left my window shopping as just that.

Then when Dr. Love and I got married, we occasionally visited the notion of adding a furry friend to our home.  Again this usually happened on a day when I had a warm-fuzzy craving that needed a furry fix.  Yet the reasons why I had abstained when I was single were still there.  We were too busy and we didn't have a lot of room.

Last June, however, things shifted.  My family dog, Yoda, passed away after a long battle with some health problems.  This was a loss that hit my mom and younger brother particularly hard and despite previous statements that they wouldn't replace Yoda after he was gone, when the time came the void was too great to be left unfilled.  Not wanting to dismiss any excuse for looking at cute furry friends, Dr. Love and I joined the search to find a new family pet.  After a couple hits and misses, they found a dog to make part of their forever home, and I thought that was the end of it.  Until Dr. Love hit me with a surprise a few days later.

As all good discussions go, it happened over dinner one night.  "So I've actually thought about getting us a dog to keep you company since I'm going to be gone so much.  I don't like the thought of you being all alone while I'm on call."

This completely caught me off guard.  Nothing about our reasons-we're-not-good-dog-parents had changed.  We were still busy (he was going to be even more so) and we still had no yard.  The rationalization was that A) other busy people have pets, B) probably 70% of the neighbors in our complex have dogs so it's not impossible, C) a smaller dog doesn't need a ton of room.

I have to admit Buster was not our first choice.

Our first choice was a little beagle/terrier mix named Sparky.  I thought it was just perfect since that is the name of the mascot at our college Alma Mater.  Apparently someone else thought it was perfect too as he was already in the process of being adopted when I called. 

The adoption coordinator with the rescue suggested Buster (then known as Dudley) a beagle mix that they had pulled from the euthanasia list at the county shelter due to his fear of other dogs.  We jumped at the chance to set up a home visit which was required as part of our approval for adoption and with the residency start date right around the corner we didn't know if Dr. Love would be available much longer.

Considering how long I had previously convinced myself that our home and our schedules weren't suitable for owning a pet, I was really nervous about our home visit.  Though I get squirmy about being judged regardless of the situation (Ms America wanna-be, I am not).  Much to my relief, Buster's foster mom thought we would be great, that he'd fit in just fine at our home, and that she would pass on her recommendation to the adoption coordinator.    We arranged for a day when she would bring B Dogg back to stay and then a shopping spree ensued with dog bowls, beds, crate, leashes, toys, food and treats.  It was a veritable Pet Palooza. 

On July 2, 2010 Buster became part of our home and this is one of the first pictures I took of him.

 

He is probably the worst guard dog and would either sleep through the whole thing or be petted by the invaders.  He is, however, the best snuggler.  I've never met a dog who craves touch and closeness as much as he does.  We still have found very few reasons as to why he ended up at the county shelter several times (from what I can decipher from his paperwork) but it was their loss and our gain.  We originally got him to keep me company during on call nights and I'm grateful for that, but given our current infertility struggles I'm even more grateful he's here.  I know he's not a substitute for a baby, and he's a dog not a kid, but our house  hearts would feel so much emptier without him.  I think Dr. Love may have had a bit of divine inspiration when he decided to look into adopting a dog.

So Happy Birthday Buster and even though you're starting to get a little gray I hope there are many more to come.

Who you gonna call?

The post below is actually a re-run of a post that I wrote not long ago on my friends/family blog.  It's still one of my favorites and since Dr. Love is on call tonight I thought I'd resurrect it here.  You never know what kind of mayhem or tomfoolery may abound at the house when he's away on call.  Hope tonight is uneventful.

Last night, at 1:45am I was woken by the shrill piercing sound of an alarm. Still groggy I fumbled with the buttons on my alarm clock thinking that had to be the source of the noise even though the sound wasn't right for my alarm clock. When that didn't stop the sound I fumbled around with anything else on my nightstand that my sleepy brain thought might be the source. Again nothing worked. By this time I was becoming more alert and my brain was trying to figure out what the sound could be.

What produces an ear splitting, heart pounding tone unexpectedly in the middle of the night? The smoke detector, I concluded. I didn't smell any smoke though so I assumed it was just a dying battery. I ran down the stairs and furiously tried to get the detector off the wall, knocking down our pull-up bar and freaking out the dog in the process. I took out the battery and...the sound continued.

Could it be the other smoke alarm I wondered? That thought confused me though as the other smoke alarm hadn't had power to it for over a year as the darn thing was so super sensitive that a steamy shower in the bathroom 5 feet away from it would set it off. Had something happened to the wiring that resurrected the hard wired demon smoke detector from the dead? Frantic to try anything to get the alarm to stop I grabbed the mop, raced back up the stairs and proceeded to whack the ill placed detector, located above the second step before the landing just out of reach to normal human arms (Where's Inspector Gadget when you need him?), like a pinata until it crashed to the ground and...the sound continued.

Frustrated and with panic levels rising I decided that I needed to narrow down what area of the house the sound was coming from. I ran to the kitchen and rummaged through the drawer to find the keys to the lock on our breaker box, then one at a time I started flipping switches.
Upstairs? = not it
Downstairs? = not it
Kitchen? = not it
Lighting? = not it
Washer / Dryer? = not it
Smoke? = definitely not it

I was out of ideas, on the verge of crying and my house was still screaming. So I did what any other 28 year old married woman would do. I called my mommy. Normally I would have called my husband but at that time he would either A) be busy with patients or B) be trying to catch a few winks of sleep in his 30 hour shift. I didn't think it was fair to disrupt his sleep when really there wouldn't be anything he could do, and he didn't need to worry about me freaking out at home alone.

"Hello?" mom mumbled.
"Mom, I need help," I stumbled trying to hold it together and not freak her out. I gave her a quick rundown of what was happening. "Can you hear that?"
"Hear what?" she replied.
Surprised that she couldn't hear the chaos in my house I moved around a bit trying to find a better sound sample for her, and as I did something amazing happened. I narrowed in on the source of the noise. And the culprit was...

A $2 kitchen timer with a dying battery.

Who knew that much noise could come from something so small? Apparently the manufacturers felt that the demise of the timer's battery was an urgent matter worthy of a household emergency. After all HOW WILL WE KNOW WHEN THE COOKIES ARE DONE!?! Or how will we be able to time the dog's bathroom break? Here we've been spending time and energy educating people on the importance of checking their smoke detectors when kitchen timers was the real epidemic.

I thanked my mom for listening, apologized for waking her up, turned all the power back on, took Buster out to go to the bathroom as all the excitement got his bladder going, and then dragged myself back to bed about 20 minutes after the whole ordeal originally began. It felt more like an hour.

This was the second time that day in which my parents had come to my rescue. Several hours earlier my dad came by my house to help me with our new washer. The installers had hooked the hoses up wrong and what should have been a cold water rinse was a hot water rinse and vice versa. I had spent an hour working through this on my own yet my girly arms couldn't move the machine nor could I get the couplings loosened. Thanks to a great dad we got it fixed and working properly.

I guess moral of the story is if you're going to be a residency widow it helps to have people you can lean on nearby... and don't forget to check your kitchen timers people!

The BIG Reveal

Thursday was officially dubbed St. Match-ricks Day as med students and residency programs around the country found out who their new intern class would be. For days they knew that they had matched but it wasn't until then that they learned the where.



We waited with baited breath for the list to come out. When the list finally showed up in my email from Dr. Love, I quickly scanned the pictures to see if I could find the husband of my interview crush. I looked and I looked, and he wasn't there. Then I noticed something interesting about the class....



Out of the 9 spots available, 7 were women.



We're a MD residency program, yet 5 of the interns are from DO schools.



One of the interns is in her 40's.



I realize that this is a very interesting class in terms of demographics and diversity. In the long run it could bring a different flavor to the program. Regardless my heart sank when I realized the people I was hoping for weren't there, and further more the 2 men are single. As a result, no new wives are coming.



I knew that the absence of spousal support had bothered me, but it wasn't until I saw that no new wives were coming that I realized how much it bothered me. The weight of loneliness that had been quietly growing was thrust into the forefront, crushing me under its weight. I buckled. I broke. It caught me by surprise.



I'm cognizant of the fact that all the hormones running through my body at the time probably are to blame for amplifying everything I was feeling. None the less, the absence of wives lit the fuse of an emotional dirty bomb that consumed me in a mushroom cloud of any frustrations I had felt recently.

Boom: I don't fit in at our residency program

Bang: I don't fit in with my friends

Crash: I don't fit in with the other women at church

Kablam: I don't fit in at work.

It is strange to feel so loved at home and yet feel out of place in so many other realms of my life. Maybe I'm being selfish and expecting too much.

I know this post sounds kind of depressing on a day that is so exciting and full of jubilation for many others. I'm sorry, really I am. I'll get there one day too as I've over the last few days I've tried to climb out of this hole and I'm just hoping for something to grab on to that will help get me over the top.

Match maker, match maker, make me a match

This is the week that fourth year medical students across the country have been waiting anxiously for. This week is THE MATCH!


For those unfamiliar with the process The Match is like speed dating for doctors and residency programs. In their fourth year, med students take a look at their options for residency programs, consider what specialty interests them and where they'd be willing to go. They submit their applications to programs and wait for an invitation to interview. During the fall interview season, students jet across the country to schmooze and check out the programs they were invited to interview with. There' s lots of hand shaking, questions, and food. Oh the free food! That truly was the best part of interview season. Months later after meeting everyone, asking all the questions, the med students make a rank list of programs in order of which they liked best.


Meanwhile the residency programs are doing the same thing. They've met with tons of students and as a group, the residents and faculty get together and rank who they liked best. Then the registry super computers crunch the numbers through various algorithms and match up the students and programs. For example, if Joe Schmoe Med Student ranked Residency Program A as his number 1 choice, and Residency Program A ranked Joe Schmoe as one of their top X (depending on the number of spots they have to fill) choices, Joe Schmoe and Residency Program A are matched together and sent off for 3-4 years of residency bliss.

{you like me, you really like me}

Now if Residency Program A had not ranked Joe Schmoe, the computer would look at his second choice, Residency Program B and see where they ranked him to see if there is a match. And so on and so forth until Joe Schmoe is matched up with a program. The process can get quite complicated but it is intended to try to find the best possible fit between students and programs. After all if you're committing to someone for 3-4 years it behooves both parties to make sure it's a good fit.


If the student does not match with any of their ranked programs, OR if a program does not fill all of their spots, they go to the SCRAMBLE, which isn't nearly as delicious as it sounds.



It would be more appropriate to call it PANIC TIME, but that could scare people off. Basically they go back to the pool of remaining programs / students and try to find someone, anyone, to take them in. It is the desperate equivalent to 3am last call at the bar where you're just hoping you don't end up alone (Or so I imagine. I don't actually have first hand experience of last call).


This time last year Dr. Love and I were sitting on pins and needles waiting to find out if and where he had matched. I feel so very blessed that he ended up matching at his number 1 choice. I'm still so proud of him for that.


It still feels so strange to be on the other side of the table in the match process. Not long ago we were waiting to find out where we were going, now we're waiting to find out who is coming. Luckily our program filled all of their 9 spots and didn't have to go to the scramble. I will admit there is at least one, maybe two people that I'm hoping we'll get as I really liked the wife.


When I originally imagined what it would be like to be a wife of a resident, I had dreams that I would be hanging out with other residents' wives. I imagined we'd keep each other company while our husbands were away on call, we'd have book clubs, we'd dish about the trials of residency over lunch, or go out for pedicures. I thought I'd have a new group of girlfriends that understand what this is like and we could support each other. Like most things, it hasn't quite turned out the way I'd imagined.


In Dr. Love's intern class we are the only married couple; a few of the other interns have girlfriends but they're either out of state or not interested in hanging out. Within all of the residents, Dr. Love is one of four that is L.D.S., thus as a result we don't do the same recreational activities that the other residents do (i.e. drinking and going to clubs). Out of all the married couples there is only one other couple that does not have kids and that's predominantly because they're newlyweds and she's finishing up med school in another state.


So while I LOVE his intern class, and I LOVE his senior residents, and I LOVE the program, I feel like I don't quite fit in. The spousal support isn't quite there and I feel kind of alone; hopefully some fresh blood will help that.

So long January

January is over and with it so is Dr. Love's OB rotation at our county hospital. I'm glad it's over with as it was wearing us both down. The schedule, the other staff, the patients, all of it was wearing us down.


There seems to be some cosmic cruelty in being thrust into a OB rotation when you're in the thick of fertility testing and treatment. He would wake up early to get there by 5:30am to treat what could have been the casting call for MTV's 16 and Pregnant or Teen Mom seasons 3-5. 16 year olds with their 20-something year old baby daddies, and their 14 year old sisters who were also pregnant. 29 year old grandmothers. 24 year olds having their 6th child. Mothers to be who had been on drugs, etc. etc. These are just some of the stories he's told me and I know he doesn't tell me all the cases he runs into. He even had a dream where a school bus full of pregnant girls pulled up to the hospital for him to treat.

These patients cause us to ask THE question that all couples struggling with fertility ask. Why? Why does it come so easy for them when they're not ready to care for a child and it is so hard for us when we have done everything right and are emotionally and financially able to give a child a good home? Why them not us?
Why?
Why?
Why?
What's the point or the purpose?

I don't know that we'll ever have the answer but I hope one day we can stop asking the question.

Ships passing in the night

I've been dreading this week. MOLE week. The week where Dr. Love goes into work at 6pm as I'm on my commute home and he gets home the next morning as I'm heading out the door for work. The week where I'll be lucky if I get to see Dr. Love for a hour, total. The week where I'll spend a lot of time alone.

I do enjoy having a bit of time to myself to work on projects in the evening without feeling guilty that I'm taking away from time with him. The problem comes with sleeping, more specifically getting to bed.

12:30am
1 am
2 am

The night ticks by and yet I'll still be awake, either engrossed in a project or wasting time in front of the T.V. I'm tired yet I find it difficult to go to bed as my sense of time is off and the night seems incomplete without him there. I know he won't be coming home, yet part of me figures it can't be time to go to bed yet, Dr. Love isn't home.

I'll hate the alarm clock more so than usual. This fact always seems to allude me when I'm sitting up in the late night as the hours of precious sleep time go wasted. In the morning I make a mental note to be better about it that night yet by bedtime that mental note will have made it's way to the recycle bin.

I'll still sleep on my side of the bed. Commonly people are excited not to share the bed for a night and look forward to stretching out over the free space. Not me. I'll some how stay just on my side of the bed. Even before I was married I predominately slept on one side of the bed. I guess subconsciously I feel that space is not mine and I leave it open, waiting for him to fill it. This week the only one filling it when I'm asleep will be Buster. It's a good thing he likes to cuddle.

Never a dull day

One of the things that amazes me about Dr. Love's job is that every day it's a new challenge and new people. Of course that can bring it's own frustrations too, but it does make for some interesting stories. Currently he is on a OB rotation at our County Hospital. During his time there he has had:
-A patient named Leydi
-A patient named Lesbia
-Had a patient sit up and cut her own umbilical cord because her husband didn't want to
-Delivered a baby with 6 fingers/toes on each hand/foot for a total of 24 digits

And there's still two and a half weeks to go.

The Most Exciting Christmas Party Ever!

I know with the New Year that Christmas is old news but I didn't get a chance to talk about this earlier.


This year was the first year that Dr. Love and I had a work related Christmas Party to attend. Last year I got laid off the week before Christmas (the scrooges) and Dr. Love wasn't working yet. While most work parties can be kind of, well, lame, I was looking forward to a night out on someone else's dime. I guess I could be called a freeloader but I also like hanging out with Dr. Love's fellow residents.


With dinner finished it was time to move onto the activities. There was an audible collective groan as the program coordinator tried to get everyone organized. As she started to give us instructions there was a low boom, the building shook, and a billowing cloud of dust could be seen out the window we were sitting next to. A car had veered through oncoming traffic lanes and crashed into the building.



Now if you're ever going to crash into a building, pick one with a room full of doctors. Within mere moments they were spilling outside to tend to the people in the car. Talk about having your own emergency responders. Miraculously everyone was fine, except the car. According to the driver he had been in the middle of a sneeze and lost control of the car. According to one of the 3rd year residents, the perfume of alcohol emanating from him suggested a different story.

Needless to say all the commotion stole the program coordinator's thunder for a while. If you've ever caught yourself rubber necking on the freeway, imagine getting to watch it all from less than 10 feet away; it was difficult to focus on much else. I do have a new found appreciation for construction, however, as had the building been poorly constructed or had the car crashed just a few more feet down the road it would have been bad news for us.

It will be hard for other parties to top the one where we watched our life flash before our eyes as the walls came tumbling down and let's not forget the purple Snuggie that Dr. Love won.