A Doctor's Strange Life: Or, How I Learned to Stop Hurrying and Love the Call.

You guys have no idea how long I've been waiting to use this title. 

My husband and I can talk. Our first date, we planned on doing dinner and a movie and we chatted so long during dinner--I remember he brought up Hegelian dialectics to impress me and I still have no idea what that means, but obviously it worked--that we didn't make it to dinner and, when he took me back to my apartment six or eight hours after the date had started, we still hadn't run out of things to say. We still haven't eight years later. 

So when we found out that he matched at the program that takes the most call out of any of our ranks, we were concerned about how it would affect our relationship. He's Q4 for the almost the whole first four years--that is a YEAR on call. Miserable. 

Which I was, for a while, and I rushed through each call day just trying to get it over with faster. And then I realized: spending an entire year of residency hurried and miserable sucks. 

Thus began operation Learn to Love the Call: 

• When DrH has to take weekend call, our sons and I sometimes go on a date to a restaurant and talk about whatever they have on their toddler-sized minds.
• If the hospital's slow, we meet DrH at the cafeteria for dinner...until we're interrupted by his pager.
• We give ourselves license to eat hot dogs, pancakes, cold cereal, or once, memorably, nothing but cheese and raisins for dinner. Nothing fancy unless we feel fancy!
• We snuggle up on the couch and watch Thomas the Tank Engine,
• Or have a crazy dance party in the basement.
• And get into pajamas whenever we feel like it. Sometimes it may still technically be morning.
• When the kids go to bed, I catch up on my trashy reality TV shows,
• Or the latest book I'm into,
• Or I call a friend and talk until I'm all talked out.
• I've learned to refinish furniture,
• Clean the bathtub 'til it shines,
• Sew a quilt from start to finish,
• And bake too many brownies, cakes, and pies.
• (Consequently, I also try to catch up on my wall sits and crunches.)

We're almost halfway through residency and maybe two-thirds of the way through call. And I'm thrilled that calls are no longer miserable, but this I will admit: the moment when I turn off the light and call it a night, alone? I don't think I'll ever learn to love that.  

Although I've found that sleeping diagonally across the bed really does take the edge off.  

Why I get on Stage in a Sparkly Bikini and Flex

Why I get on Stage in a Sparkly Bikini and Flex

 by: Emily Sanchez Otero

On Nov. 1^st, 2003, I was on stage doing my first Figure competition in Sacramento, CA.  Earlier that morning, I had driven the two hours north from Stanford, where I was a senior, a pre-med History major, a Pi Phi sister, and a very independent woman.  Period.  My boyfriend (DrH, now), was snapping pictures in the crowd, cheering.  He was an honors-bound, pre-med Biology major who had just finished his Medical School applications.  Smart as hell and hot, too.  But, right then, he was my #1 Fan.  And, I was in the spotlight for once.  It felt scary…and nice.  I got 13^th place.

Fast forward six weeks.  I was sitting in my 1998 forest green Saturn in the parking lot outside of Student Health, and I was crying.  The test was positive.  DrH was in St. Louis at his first Medical School interview and he was on the other end of my cell phone call—surprisingly calm.  “We’ll make it work,” he said.  “St. Louis seems like a great place for a family.” 

And that was it.  That was the end of me as an independent, sky-is-the-limit, might-be-a-doctor, too, intelligent, Woman.  Everything changed instantly.  And, eight months later, I was a mom living in the Midwest, married to a medical student, too uneducated (with my Stanford degree) to get a job that would pay enough for childcare.  I spent my days nursing and trying to figure out how to live on $1700 per month (DrH’s MSTP stipend).   There wasn’t a pretty wedding or a diamond ring—just a civil ceremony and a $40 band…that I bought for myself.  But, I knew that I was lucky to have snagged a future-DOCTOR.  So, I played the part of young, happy, new wife-and-mom.  I worked tirelessly to lose my baby weight and to figure out the ins-and-outs of WIC and Food Stamps and Medicaid.  Meanwhile, my new husband disappeared into his books, getting smarter and smarter and smarter…while I just got older.

In 2010, however, everything changed.  My youngest was two and potty trained, and with three kids under 6, we were DONE.  I had given up trying to live on nothing, as we had private Kindergarten and ballet lessons to pay for.  (It wasn’t our kids fault we had them too early; they would not lack any opportunity if we could help it.)  So, I was working as a personal trainer every free minute I had.  While the job was stressful and the hours painful (most people work out before or after work), it inspired me to get back to my own fitness goals—to get back on stage. 

Looking back, the idea of competing at that time was just short of insane.  Prepping for a fitness competition is 16 weeks of working out at least two hours, daily.  It is a constant ache of hunger, and never-ending stress—prep meals, do workouts, practice posing, repeat.  The process is hard for a single person with no kids.  For a working (50+ hours per week) mom-of-three, with a husband just about to start his away rotations (one of them would be 2,000 miles away for eight weeks); prepping for a show seemed impossible. 

And, it was…almost.  It was a messy, difficult, stressful, emotional experience that almost tore my marriage apart and made me question my ability to be a mom.  But, on July 9, 2010—seven years, 2,000 miles and three kids away from Sacramento—I stepped back onto the stage.  And, my DrH was there, just like the first time, cheering me on, supporting me like I had him through his MD/PhD years.  It felt so strange, so scary…and so good.  I got first place in Beginner Figure and Novice Figure, and I was hooked.  DrH carried both of my trophies around with him all night while we celebrated, and he bragged about me to anyone who would listen.  It was good for both of us.  It was healing; we felt like we were back on track.  He had felt bad for what life had taken from me, and I don’t think I realized it until that night.  But, there we were, on the other side of the hardest seven years of our lives…and we hadn’t just survived; we had killed it!

That, my dear Doctor wives, is why I am a Figure competitor.  It gives me something to think about besides “when is this going to be over?”  It distracts me from the impossible life that we have chosen and gives me a chance to make and follow my own dreams, now.  It makes me feel like I’m not “just getting older,” but rather, getting a little bit better.  But, most of all, it gives my marriage a brief moment where I am the one on stage.  My competitions allow my DrH a brief reprieve from being the star and give him the chance to be the supporter, the encourager, and my #1 Fan, again.  It turns out that we both needed that.

(And, hey, let’s be honest…the sparkly bikinis are super duper fun, too!)

Remaining Romantic in Residency

My name is Celeste Holbrook.  I'm a sexual health educator and consultant, and I am married to a PGY4 Emergency Medicine resident.  I talk to a lot of doctor's wives in my practice as it is so very difficult to continue to remain sexually intimate with a partner who has such a grueling and emotionally taxing schedule.

I recently wrote an article for my own blog that takes a humorous approach to foreplay with a physician.
http://www.drcelesteholbrook.com/physician-foreplay-seduce-a-doctor-according-to-their-specialty/

Celeste Holbrook, Ph.D.

Sexual Health Consultant and Educator

www.drcelesteholbrook.com

More husband than doctor

I didn't want a doctor when my world fell apart. I'd already consulted Dr. Google and knew the differences between melanoma in situ (please, please let it be in situ) and stages one, two, three and four, which I read through tears so thick my four year old started spinning around me and singing, "let's be HAPPY!  No more being sad!"

Which is a lot easier when my mom, my too-young-for-this, healthy-as-can-be mom, hasn't just been diagnosed with cancer, staging undetermined.

I didn't want a doctor. I wanted my husband to come home and forget everything he knows about cancer and mortality rates and treatments, about pathology and incisions and turnaround times and make me feel better.

He did.

He held me and I cried. He took the boys outside to play so I could cry some more. He made dinner. He bathed our kids and got them ready for bed, and then he went back to work.

Between patients, he called me. "I have a fracture coming in soon, but I wanted to know how you're doing," he'd say. "I love you. Your mom will be fine. Try to sleep, and you'll feel better in the morning."

And in the morning, when things were a little better, a text: "I'm headed to clinic, but I love you. Your mom will be fine. Try to keep your mind off it. We'll know more soon."

And in the afternoon, when I was doing a lot better: "I'm studying now. Call me if you need me and I'll come home."

And a few hours later when, suddenly, I wasn't: "Leaving now. I'll be home soon."

Residency doesn't allow time off to comfort your wife while she's waiting for pathology to call, and while he was able to sneak away the first day, he was Q2 for the next week. But when he couldn't hold my hand, he held my heart together with prayers and sweet words, and day by day we got through it. And when we found out that she was just a a single surgery and an awful, beautiful scar away from being cancer free, he comforted me again while I shook with relief and disbelief, because how can I be so lucky that my mom, who for a week I was sure would miss my sons' first days of school, their baptisms, their high school graduations, their weddings, was just at stage one and was going to be okay. And my husband. My husband.

He's a great resident. On his way to becoming an exceptional surgeon.

He is an even better husband.