Hard and hopeful truths of being a med wife

If you recall, we originally started this blog so people could get an idea of what it's like to go to med school. We wished there had been more blogs for us to read before starting so we could get an idea of what it's like. Here are some thoughts I've had over these last few months about what it's like at times. I'm hesitant to post this, because if I knew ahead of time what it would be like, it would have been much more frightening for me. But despite it all, there is joy here. Joy and difficulty. And at times, all of these are true.

• Sometimes (especially near big tests) it feels like we're people who just happen to live in the same house as each other. Like you're just roommates but the other one doesn't ever do the dishes.
• But you didn't expect him to be doing the dishes; he's got better things to be doing. It's not the not-doing-dishes that's hard - it's that utter loss of time and closeness that make it hard. You really have to work at your relationship to keep your humor, intimacy, and personality intact.
• But sometimes you can't help but both be living your separate lives and hope they become the same life again someday.
• A professor at James's school says he and his wife got through it by remembering med school is "a short term investment for a long term benefit." I like this, and  tell myself some variation of that at least weekly. "It's not forever." "It's just three more years."  "It'll end someday." "It'll be worth it."
• At times you almost stagger under the thought of how the end isn't the end - after school there's residency, which is its own tangle of poorly paid and overworked years, and then you have to face a student loan which is worth more than the average house. And you realize that this whole "at least you'll be married to a doctor" line people try to sell you is baloney. The first half of becoming and being a doctor is miserable, and "someday you'll have money" doesn't help the "now you don't have any, and your kids don't see their dad, and there's nothing for birthdays" problem. Maybe in twenty years.
• But when your student comes home excited about something they learned, you love it. They try to explain it to you and usually can't because it's obscure and not that interesting to you, but you love, love, love it anyway.
• You know your family and friends will never truly understand what your life is right now; it's not realistic to them. And that's okay. They become desensitized to it, or might be hurt by why you still can't do whatever it is, and it stinks to hurt them. It's hard to communicate the daily weight of this, and that every single test is a very big deal, and when we do have time off, we want to spend it together first. Other things that used to be high on the priority list slip down, and family and friends notice that loss, and it's heartbreaking to contribute to that. I feel very protective of my time with James. We need it.
• Test days (at least for me) are actually wonderful. James gets the day off after his tests, and since he has nothing new to study, I know we get to have family time.
• Sometimes after test weeks, when Henry sees James on Sunday after many days of little to no visual of James, Henry is wary or afraid of James, the tall stranger. I think that's pretty hard on James, and it's hard to know we can't really change it. But as Henry gets older, it's getting better.
• On the other hand, Henry is so young he won't remember this, so it's lucky.
• You can talk for hours to anyone who'll listen about the nuances of medical school and you don't even attend. Your nuances are different from your student's, though. It gets a little old hanging around your student and his school friends - that is ALL THEY TALK ABOUT. You'd think they might for once talk about something else, like sports or video games or the weather, but those topics last for maybe ten seconds.
• However, you yourself have your own topics that are probably ALL YOU TALK ABOUT, and it makes an enormous difference to get some sort of support group for you as a spouse, too. This could be church, other student wives, coworkers, or anything. You need your life to matter, too, and I love that I have friends who are in EXACTLY the same boat as me, and they understand completely. I love it.
• The utter, crushing, financial weight of this is something I will not miss.
• I am so grateful for programs and loans and other things that help us afford to get through this.
• I never cease to be amazed at what James knows and is capable of. Not only the material they're learning (he can diagnose things! It's crazy!) but his capacity for self discipline, his ability to study effectively, his great intellectual effort, his natural skill and joy for the subject. I like to see my husband succeed at things he works hard for. 
• There is something both humbling and strengthening about these years. Knowing we're in this together, following our family's dreams, and working so hard to do this - it's the kind of thing you look back on, I suppose, and say, with great satisfaction, "We did that." For today, there is great pride in saying, "We're doing this now."
• And despite it all, I am happy. I'm with my husband (at least sometimes) and I'm with my son. It's a safe place. There's sunshine and there are friends. There is beauty in our struggle. We are adding strength to our family. All I want is to be with James and Henry, anyway, so why not here? Why not be happy with that now?

The uppercut of all semesters

This semester (the second semester of year two) has been the hardest so far for both of us. This is mostly due to condensed course work, huge board tests, and preparing for rotations (years 3 and 4).

James has to take his first huge certification test by June. Think of it as the doctor equivalent of the lawyer's bar exam. In order to give students more time dedicated to studying for that, our school finishes most (but not all) classes in early April, so they have more free time the months before the test. Because of this condensed schedule of regular classes, he has more classes per day than usual to get through than before, so each day is already much more demanding for him. He has one more week of this schedule before he's done with the bulk of classes for the semester and will instead use all his time studying for boards.

On top of that, Jame is also studying for multiple hours each day for the big board test outside of normal studying. This studying includes old notes, old lectures, study aides, and a whole lot of practice questions from question banks. A LOT of that.

The board test this year is one of three big old expensive tests for DO students (called step 1, step 2, and step 3, conveniently). There is also an equivalent series of tests for MD students. They're both difficult groups of tests, but programs don't always accept them interchangeably. He must take the DO ones since that's what he'll be, but we decided that it would be best for us and our future if he did both. the DO and MD tests. In our case, the first of each series is scheduled for the very end of May. He spends an astonishing amount of time studying each day with this combined with normal studying. That's been very hard on him and in turn on the family to never see him.

Another difficulty of this semester has been more of an emotional one: preparing for rotations for the next two years. Some schools are big enough to have their own teaching hospital, but ours is not, so our students go to one of some twenty-odd rotation sites for the next two years to learn the on-the-job side of things. We ranked the sites in order of preference, but ultimately, it's a lottery system and you go where you're assigned. We ended up getting assigned to Harlan, KY, which is about one hour from our house. It was not something we were expecting; it was definitely not one of our top preferences. We were frustrated with this assignment at first, but have since made our peace with it. It does have some benefits: we'll stay in our house so we don't have to move, I can keep my job, it's a much lower cost of living than some of the sites (e.g. Tampa), and since it's more of a rural hospital there aren't as many students so James can do more hands-on stuff. We're actually content with it now, but for a little bit there it felt like some promised adventure was taken away from us, like we were being held back in some way by not getting to move on. We're still a little nervous because we will see less of James each day because of the commute, and I'd hoped to see more of him, but we like our area! We love our landlords. Our house is perfect for us. I like my job. It'll be okay.

But really - this semester has been overwhelmingly draining for both of us. My mantra since Christmas has been, "I can do anything for six months." Now we're down to, "I can do anything for two months!" It has been such a loooong four months, though. But imagine the relief when it's over! Our calendar has a series of exclamation points written on it for the entire week after the board tests are over. That is my goal. That week will be...well, honestly, it probably won't be worth it, but it will be sweet and wonderful. And over.

Christmas, Lexington, Snow, and a Shark Hat

Christmas happened. Approximately December 25th, if I recall correctly. There were presents, meals, happy 70 degree weather. Henry didn't destroy the tree. (Score!) It was relaxing to be home together, and Hal got better at letting James comfort him instead of only his mom. (Hooray!) It was fun to fill Hal's stocking for his first Christmas. (Awwww!) Boxes and wrapping paper were greatly enjoyed for many days. (Bonus present!)



Before school started again, we went to Lexington: the horse capital of the country, nay, the world, nay, the universe!  (Or should that be "neigh"?) Sadly, on January 2nd, horses and their many attractions are apparently closed for the winter and holidays. We had fun driving past the horse farms, though, and it's just like Seabiscuit or Secretariat make it seem. One second you're in downtown, and not four minutes later you're surrounded by sprawling fields with white fences around them.

Note: This is a simulation and not a real horse.

If you're in Lexington and are unable to see horses or the Toyota factory (also tragically closed!), don't worry: Lexington is also famous for bourbon! There were dozens of upscale bars in the few square blocks we walked. It was impressive. At the visitor's center, they have different local bourbons you can puff some air into and smell. I couldn't tell much difference, but then I'm not a connoisseur. They all smelled appropriately fermented and dusty, though.

Inhale Lexington by wafting your favorite bourbon!

If you'll recall from last year, this area isn't well-equipped to handle snow. Remember that east coast blizzard a few weeks back? We didn't ever get more than 11 inches or so (all told, with melting in between storms, so it never got to be more than 8" at once at our house) but we were again "snowed in" for a week. The local school districts had even longer before they reopened. We did not get the enormous quantities of snow that, say, Washington D.C. got, but we got a fair amount for our area.

On the first day of snow, it was supposed to stop snowing at noon and then turn to rain that afternoon,which would freeze into ice overnight. So at noon on the first day we decided it was our best hope to get to the store. Our poor little 2-wheel drive Honda does great...except in snow. I think it's afraid of cold weather, frankly, and we should've just sent James in the truck, but nooo, we thought we'd make a "trip" out of it and all go together. Never, ever again. We only spun out of control once on the way there, and only got well and truly stuck on the way home at the stop sign downhill from our house. It had snowed three inches from when we left to when we returned. We only slid into one mailbox before two strangers with trucks helped tow us to the grass by our uphill driveway (no way was that happening!). The next day was the warm eye of the snowstorm, and while I was shoveling a nice old man in a bulldozer was plowing the road, and he helped dig our car out so we could get it back up the hill.

Henry remains undecided in his feelings towards snow. He was too busy staring at it to really feel much emotion towards it. We put him on a blanket atop the snow and, very uncharacteristically, he just lay there without moving, and waited patiently for us to take him back inside. He couldn't get enough time staring out the window at it, though. Despite his lack of snow, he sure was stylish in the hat I made for the occasion. Awww.

Om nom nom!

FAQs we get asked..well...frequently.

Every week or so I get a question about med school and doctors, residencies, rotations, etc. It's getting worse as 2nd year draws to a close: "Wait, he has a huge certification test already?!" "Why are you likely moving next year?" "Are they doctors when they're residents?" "Does everybody have to all this, or is your school just unusually demanding?" "Aren't you about done with that school thing yet?" "Sheesh, still not making any money, huh? Aren't you ashamed of yourself for not contributing to society yet?" (Just kidding. But seriously.)

This won't answer all of them, but this should start to shed some light on those burning questions in your souls.

Shock

Awhile ago I asked people what they wanted to read about and one of the questions was essentially, "what kind of medical culture shock have you experienced, James?" Well, I'm hear to finally answer that burning question.

Before starting school, I had very little exposure to doctors. I mean very little. We're talking in the realm of my only experience really coming from my occasional trip to the family doctor. I shadowed a little bit, but nowhere near as much as most of my classmates. The biggest shock for me was how little I actually knew about medical practice and the different specialties. I have no one to blame but myself. Even so, it was still quite a shock to meet people who already knew exactly which specialty they wanted to go into. To this day I haven't the foggiest idea what I'll go for. I'm really hoping that rotations next year will help me out in regards to that. I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't know if I can say that I've experienced any shock related to medicine. There are some things that have shocked me about medical school, so I'll talk about those.

The first thing that I'm still amazed about is the number of people in my class that smoke. I would really have thought that understanding what is going on when you inhale those toxic fumes would be a huge deterrent to smoking. Then again, I don't understand what it feels like to be addicted.

The next major thing that has surprised me about school is the insane pace. I always thought that college felt like cramming a year's worth of high school into a semester. The more I think about it, med school is like cramming a year's worth of high level college science into a semester. It's pretty crazy. Needless to say, I've had to adjust my study habits. In undergrad, I used to think that studying only from PowerPoints was dumb. It never seemed to work for me at least. I was more of the read the book kind of guy. Now I can't even imagine having the time to read from the books even if I wanted to. I was not expecting that at all. I envisioned my days being spent reading textbooks for hours on end instead of studying from PowerPoints. I will say this though: I have found a very (at least what I think to be) efficient way of getting all the information to stick in my head.

Another big shock of med school is something that they don't really tell you: the material isn't overwhelmingly difficult. What is difficult is the volume of facts and minutiae that you have to learn. That isn't to say that all of the concepts are easy, but much more manageable in terms of difficulty than I expected.

I'm sure there are other things that are shocking to me, but I can't really think of any thing else. Hopefully this shed a little more light into what it's like to enter med school.

Semester's End (a teacher's perspective)

I love the end of the semester. I love solidifying grades, the excitement of students, the final results of projects and papers, seeing what they've managed to remember, reading their favorite/least favorite topics of the semester, and playing review games. I do not love the grabbing for extra credit, the last minute "Oh, my doctor gave me a note for that day I missed class back in September" attempts, and I really don't like giving bad grades to good people who just didn't do it. I also don't like cheaters. But really, the end of a semester is fun.

It should be noted that poor grammar here is different than poor grammar I've experienced anywhere else. Things like, "I knoe it was wrong," "It isn't fare," and "Everyone has went there before" are typical, and people really do use the word "ain't" regularly. They don't really say "y'all" but there are lots of "you uns" instead. They also say, "I don't care to," which really means "I don't mind." It throws me off. If I ask someone to turn off the lights, they'll say, "I don't care to," and then I think, "Geez, I mean, it's just the lights, but if you don't want to..." but they're up and turning them off. They'll say on their review papers, "I didn't care to learn this chapter," but it really means they didn't think that the chapter was so bad. It throws me for a loop every time. I get even more confused when people use it as a question: "If you don't care to close the door...?" I never know what to say. Yes? No? Much of my classroom confusion this semester came from this.

And now for the semester highlights!

We did some fun stuff in class this semester. I had my anatomy class recreate bones and bony structures with candy, which was very fun. They completed it with varying degrees of success. Here are two of my favorites, both of which feature a foot.
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My biology lab class was supposed to do a science fair type project this semester. It was pretty basic - it had to be biology and not chemistry or physics, they had to do a formal lab report on it (they've been doing those all semester), they had all four months to do it, and they had to do a basic one minute presentation on it the last day of class. This was worth 25% of their grade. The last day of class rolls around, and fully half of my class doesn't show up. Of those who actually were there, here are the best moments:

• One person came who didn't do it. He pretended he did, and gave a fake presentation on what he pretended to have done. He told us about watering plants with tap water, boiling water, and frozen water. (Did he just put ice cubes on it? And wasn't the boiling water also tap water, only hotter?) Apparently, the tap water pretend plants (of unspecified temperature) did the best. (You think?)
• One person decided to go without sleep for as long as she could. Her title was "102 Hours Without Sleep." Her hypothesis was that if she didn't sleep she would experience sleep deprivation symptoms (which she did indeed experience; her formal lab report was simply a journal of her doings and symptoms for those days). Despite the utter lack of the scientific method in her project, her presentation was by far the most interesting. She got pulled over once during these 102 hours, but it turns out she had hallucinated the cop car and only thought she was being pulled over. "Looking back, I probably shouldn't have been driving."
• I loved this title: "Christmas Cactus: Which soil will bring more cheer to your holidays?"
• They struggled with the concept of background information, and researching their projects and past data on them. "Background - I was wondering what would happen." "Background Info - I looked this project up on google to find how to do it and found it in a kid science site." "Background - my girlfriend and her mother were fighting over this so we did an experiment." 
• Instead of "clean up," someone wrote this as their final step in the experiment: "Put all the materials back to their homes."
• Someone used an entire page (a whole page!) to list their three materials and four steps of their experiment, all neatly centered in the absolute middle of the page. This was in the middle of their rather wordy lab report - an almost blank page, just sitting there.
• Someone cited me as a source: "Professor. In class. October 2015."
• We learned all sorts of things: freezing bananas makes their skins darker, some types of bread never mold, painted toes may or may not grow faster, and in a how-long-does-it-take-for-this-to-dissolve experiment, "sometime in the nine and a half hours I was away, the substance dissolved."

Here's to education!

Nashville's temples

On Black Friday we drove down to Nashville to have a mini adventure and go to the temple. It's amazing how much having a child will impact the timing of mini adventures! It was the longest car trip Henry's been on, so we tried to time it so that it would include some of his normal nap times and make it easier for everyone. We...erm...mostly succeeded.

We stayed with some friends who were in our church here last year and then they moved there for their year 3 rotations. James got to see the hospital and talk to someone about rotations, which I think helped him solidify how it works.

We went to visit the Parthenon, which my grandfather says is worth it even if it's the only thing you do in Nashville, and I have to say - it was pretty impressive. Plopped right in the middle of Nashville you have a replica of a Greek temple for Athena (and there's an enormous statue of her inside). I loved it.

Athena's shield

Athena in all her golden glory

Right next to the Parthenon was another statue. We loved the benches surrounding it that had words on such as "integrity," "honesty," and "mechanical." Not all the words seemed to carry the same impact.


We were planning to stop by the Grand Ole Opry on our way back on Saturday but didn't because of...yarn. I needed another skein of yarn that only Joann's sells, so when we saw one off the freeway, we stopped so I could run in and buy it. It seems that at least at this Joann's, their Black Friday event was actually a Super Saturday event. I snagged my yarn and then stood in the long, bustling, holiday-cheery-and-crafty lines and that ate up all of our extra time. But once you've been in line for more than ten minutes, you're committed. I was getting that yarn, dang it. And woot woot, it was half off. Super Saturday! We opted for a local (and not that great) BBQ lunch and Joann's in lieu of the Opry. Next time!

We also wanted to visit Olan Rogers's store (The Soda Parlor) because we love his videos. But with it getting dark so early and such a long drive ahead of us with a Henry who hates driving in the dark, we had to forego that, too. Again, next time!

And that's pretty much all we had time for. On our way there we drove through several of the cities that are core rotation sites, so it was fun to see places we might be assigned to live for the next two years.