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Lives of Doctor Wives: From the forums

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

From the forums

This was posted over on the forum, but I wanted it to receive a little more attention. Anyone have thoughts, ideas, or advice for Janice?

*****
I am glad to read that a lot of posts are coming from the surgical spouse stand point. I am married to a (newly) second year gen surg intern. We have been together throughout medical school. So many people told me that the first year of marriage was the hardest and I always responded that the first year was going to be easy (his 4th yr of med school). It was his intern year that was going to be hard. Well, we made it past intern year with a few bumps and bruises, but for the most part okay. But this are starting to not be awesome and I am hoping to get some advice.

In general our lives have been a whorl-wind... moving multiple times in 4 years (hurricane katrina, moving to texas, back to new orleans , then back to ohio (where we are both originally from). Getting married, having a baby and random family drama. So basically we have never really gotten to take a step back and just relax.

Because surgery tends to not follow the 80 work week and the call schedule can be brutal my husband only thinks about sleep: wanting to sleep longer in the morning, wanting to nap, when's then next time he can get sleep... you get the picture. For the most part I get it, he's tired. Well, I get it as much as I can get it. I do understand that his job is extremely hard and time-consuming, but I need him to understand that my life is not perfect and I am tired too. Whenever we have any disagreement it always goes back to him being tired and me not understanding that. Previously we were able to talk about anything and workout our problems. Now he just shuts down, sometimes because he is too tired to talk or discuss anything, partly because he thinks I will never understand what he goes through.

If anyone can throw any advice my way I would really appreciate it.

Janice

7 Comments:

Blogger Elissa said...

Janice- I am the wife of a 5th and final year Gen Surgery resident and we will be starting a 2 yr fellowship next year. So if anyone can understand it may be me and a few hundred other surgery spouses, haha! I have 2 crazy young boys and have been married to my hubby since the start of 3rd yr medical school. We are surviving this chaotic life too. My hubby and I have been discussing lately too how our lives are so different because of surgery. So please please feel free to email me. We can chat!!

August 31, 2010 at 3:44 PM  
Blogger Stephanie said...

i TOTALLY get it...i've got lots to say but don't want to put it on the internet for whomever to read... what is your email address? i'd love to send you an email!

August 31, 2010 at 4:14 PM  
Blogger Denise said...

Oh, the life of the surgery residency. My husband finished his gen surg residency in June, and started his "real" career in July. So to say that I know what you're going through is an understatement. Through med school and residency, we added 3 boys to the daughter we had prior, and there were many heated discussions concerning his lack of respect for the work I put in while he was spending so many hours at the hospital. Are you interested in sharing your email address?? Too many thoughts and words for the comment section... :)

August 31, 2010 at 5:01 PM  
Blogger Melisa said...

You ladies are so awesome! I just love how you all stick together!

August 31, 2010 at 5:23 PM  
Blogger Stephanie said...

i am chuckling because it seems that we don't exactly want to be candid on the internet. not a good sign... med school wives, take note -- a surgical residency is far from peachy!!

September 1, 2010 at 1:37 AM  
Blogger TheFamousStacie said...

I am an open book : )

Chad did one year of surgery and, yes, it was the hardest year of our marriage! We also had a baby that year.

He was ALWAYS tired. He was a shell of his former self. Dragging in like something out of hell, and looking even worse. His eyes were dark and sunken and myself and the children might as well have not existed.

I got busy joining the spouse alliance and making friends to get through.

When he was in really bad shape I would just crawl into bed and rub his shoulders or scratch his back. I just tried to stay out of the way.

When the baby was born we woke up from the corner he was sleeping in and took a look, then went back to sleep. He tried to get me oust from the hospital before 24 hours so he could get back to work!!! They told him no.

It was an ugly time.

I made it a priority to find other ways to see him or make contact. Every call night I would load the kids up and show up at the hospital with goodies, clean undies and a tooth brush. I would wait out the surgery or hide it behind our secret planter.

I would meet him for lunch at the hospital or at a fast food place close by.

It's tough stuff. I'm just glad he changed to anesthesiology.

We've been married over 10 years, btw

September 1, 2010 at 4:54 PM  
Blogger Laura said...

I'm in the same boat as Janice. We've been together for 4 years and we're not married and don't have kids yet and I've been worried that this demanding profession he's chosen is why we're kind of stuck in the same place. I want to get married and have kids and I'm sure he sees that as more "work," as terrible as that sounds, and that's why we haven't moved forward.

September 4, 2010 at 11:34 AM  

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