Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Happy for a day
Yesterday we were so happy that Jason finished his intern year, as I am sure all of you were too. I was starting to feel like I might actually have a husband again. Now all feelings of happiness are long gone with the arrival of his July schedule. I am sure things will get better in the following months but for the entire month he has lectures from 4-6 pm. I was hoping that he would be coming home around five or so but everyday he will come home with just enough to kiss the girls goodnight and probably read the rest of the night away. But he will have weekends off so it isn't too bad. Now I am willing to bet that some of you will have it worse than me so go ahead and vent on this post. We can be positive and smile through tears later so let loose and let us know how you really feel. By the way if no one vents and everyone justs try to make me feel better I will feel even worse so please be negative this one time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
maggie,
i will vent for you. :) ALL year long, all i've heard is "second year is SO much better." well, this month he has ER, which is okay, long days/nights, but not so many of them. but next month he does night float AGAIN. he just did it last month. this is my absolute LEAST favorite month of all (we literally NEVER see him awake), and of course it HAS to fall during the summer when the kids are home all day!! argh... then after that its wards, and well, basically, i'm seeing NO change from intern year...yet. i'm hoping it *will* get better as everyone has said... I hear you, 2nd year isn't shaping up much better...
I have very little hope for second year either. Damon started at his new program yesterday and this new hospital is CRAZY! This year will probably be a lot worse than last year! It's a new program so they have a ton of kinks to iron out - plus the hours are just a lot longer. 4 more years to go! Plus probably 2 more after that!
I hope you girls all have fun on your getaway weekend. You all deserve it!
I was also hesitant to be excited about second year.... I just didn't see it being that easy....It is nice to know that one year is down, but the other night at graduation a resident told us the the resident out in Wray where Adam is going is on call 10 times a month!!! Now granted he can take call from home because it is a tiny town and we will probably live across the street from the hospital, but ten times a month! That's like a 3rd of the month. I never counted how many times he had been on call the first year, but I didn't think it was ten??!!
Again it is a small town so it might not be busy all the time??? but it might, it serves a large area....
I want to be excited about call from home... but what if we are doing something and he has to go right in the middle.. and Kyler gets upset and doesn't understand??? And if he gets called in for something lame that could have been taken care of in the clinic the next day I am going to be ticked!!!
Also they didn't fill the intern position for his track so his 3rd year he will be the only resident. Good for experience, but does that mean he will have to work twice as hard??? All these unknowns....
One good thing is that the intern who he will be working with just had a baby so we wont have to worry about covering her maternity leave or anything :)
I guess Adam will never work 9 to 5 and have every weekend off but I can hope for a 50 hour work week someday?? Is that too much to ask?
I can't imagine doing it for more that 3 years! I don't know how all of you do it who are in surgery or other stuff. I will be glad when Adam can moonlight too, I am tired of having such a TIGHT budget...
Well I wish I was going to the girls getaway! You guys will have so much fun!! enjoy each other!!! I hope I can go next year.
I always love it when someone finds out that Steves a doctor, they always say things like 'Wow, your so lucky', or something like that. If only they knew what we really go through to get to the point that they see. This is so much harder than we thought it was going to be, and if we had to do it again, we don't know if we would. Don't get me wrong, Steve loves what he does, but I think he could be happy doing other things too. People just have no idea what its like, especially with families. I'm glad I have you guys to understand, though, and whatever doesn't kill us, only makes us stronger, right? Lets just hope it doesn't kill us ;)
Oi. I thought I had it bad. James is back to working 105 hour weeks. He's supposed to have one less call shift per month, when in fact it will be more like 1 or 2 MORE shifts per month. They didn't have enough incoming interns, so everyone has to cover the extra shifts. It's nuts. Plus, in July, james is the MOOD every single time he's on call which means the possibility of sleep is Non-existent. :P
I feel for you Rachel- 10 times per month is WAY too much.
Katie- I know exactly what you mean. Maybe someday it will be "so nice" like they all say, but no one believes you that it totally SUX right now. Stupid stupid residency.
Maggie- was that negative enough for you? I could do worse if not, I'm sure. ;)
I like what you said Katie about how when people find out your married to a doctor they act like it must be so nice and my life is cushy.... boy would I love to unload and tell them what it's really like... but then they might look at me like I am crazy and never want to speak to me again :) Yeah, I am hoping for the nice doctor's wife days someday :)
Oh now I don't feel so lonely or bad for feeling down. This last year was the hardest year ever. Jason had three months of call 10 times a month. It was horrible. They couldn't space it evenly so for one week every other day was a call day. I hope you don't get that Rachel. I also agree with Katie on finding a different profession. Jason is constantly finding new jobs that he is sure he would have enjoyed more. His little brother wants to be a Dr and Jason is trying to get him to see it from this point of view. But the family just keeps telling the brother it won't be that bad and he can do it. I guess we haven't done a good enough job of letting the pain of last year show. I can't wait for the day when the wife of an intern or med student asks me, "How bad was it?" Then I can smile and lie through my teeth, "Oh it goes so fast and it isn't that bad."
Wow, I could say more but you guys pretty much summed it all up. I will say I felt like wonderwoman last month. Dave was on night float and I have a new baby and a child with a broken leg. I did everything. I mean everything down to mowing the lawn and working one day a week. I know they work hard at their job and it would suck to work nights but I would have loved six to eight hours of uninterupted sleep, even if it was during the day. This year was definetly a challenge but somehow we made it through. Dave's rotation is awesome this month. He is doing orth and it is like 8-5. He even has his second holiday off since he starte last year, the fourth of july. But he did get screwed for the holidays again this year. Last year we were in Boise and this year he is on night float. I was so mad. I do hope it is all worth it someday.
i just had to second the comments about people being in awe that my husbands a dr. yes, i'm proud of him and we have worked so hard to get to this point, but people totally have this idea of what a "dr.s wife" life is like!!
first of all, amen rachel for the moonlighting. i can't WAIT for him to get some moonlighting shifts. our budget is so tight, down to the dollar with occasional splurges, but very, very few. we are STILL on WIC, we qualified for the highest level of "family assistance" through the rec center, and if it weren't for our meager savings account, we would all qualify for medicaid. Our neighbor came over the other day collecting donations for the rec center programs and i just told him i couldn't donate right now, i didn't tell him that we are ON that scholarship he is collecting money for! and he said, "its for those really, really poor families that can't afford to use the rec center."...yep, i guess thats US--the doctor that lives on the corner, and can't afford to go to the rec center! ha ha!
I'm so glad we had this post. I really needed it. I am glad I'm not the only one suffering and really hating this right now. Sometimes I feel like I am the only one that literal never sees their husband. Right now Ken is working a 30 hour shift (always ends up being longer) and he will not get any sleep during that shift. He will get home around noon tomorrow (sat) sleep for the rest of the day and has to be at work 7 am Sun, work till 3pm. Then will work another 30 hour call shift on monday over to Tuesday. This is basically his schedule for the rest of the month. The part that really stinks, our car just broke down (the engine got flooded) and so I am out a car. I have no idea how I will get to church on Sunday and my doctor's appointment on Monday. Also, we have been without a dryer for almost 3 months! We thought it was dryer problems but after having gone through 4 dryers we are now thinking it is electrical problem.
It is so weird to think that Ken works more than twice as much as the normal person (he is working about 90 hours a week). Ken had a golden weekend last month (he got Saturday and Sunday off) and it was so nice. It was only his second time having that since starting. Crazy that normal workers gets those every week, oh wouldn't that be nice. I can't wait for the day when he is around more. It would be so nice to have more than a couple hours with him. I could really use some help around the house (we have soooo many projects, this house is old and falling apart) but I hate to have him do much when the kids haven't got to spend anytime with him all week.
My parents have friends and he is an ER doctor. When they heard Ken was in residency the first thing the wife said is "tell Shelly to hang in there. It really does get better." I sure hope so.
Post a Comment