Hope Days

Even though the past two months have been amazing- a new rotation approaches. Inpatient medicine with a short team- yay!! But you know what, PGY2 is a lot easier than first year, by far. Its crazy to think we are halfway there. So as this new month approaches, I wanted to share something unique that we learned and really utilize when things start to get crazy during residency. We call them "Hope Days."

Hope Days stem from the verse, 

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12

We started to discover (like, 1 year into our marriage) that when months are insane and we only get a few hours a night to see each other, it makes it hard to really connect. I know right? What a concept. It makes me laugh to think that it took us a while to get this and identify it as something we wanted to overcome. Residency was happening and we knew it was going to take work and strategy, but we weren't really being strategic with it. And that is where Hope Days came from!

Hope Days are days where DrH and I schedule our time together every week. It becomes our goal, our "hope" and helps keep us motivated to get through it- knowing on Saturday or Monday night or whenever we decided, we were going to do something together, just us, with no distractions. Whether that was driving 30 minutes to Dominic's (which is an AMAZING Italian place) or spending the entire day doing things we've been wanting to do for weeks.

I love the fact we started this and it was so awesome. It gave me purpose during the week to buckle down and clean the crap out of everything, do laundry, meal plan, pay bills, and basically do everything so no errands or chores needed to happen on Hope Day. DrH would plan out what we were going to do, and I would work to keep the house in preparation. All in all, it has been one of the coolest things we've learned together in our marriage.

We loved thinking about the Biblical application to this scenario. In Hebrews 11 it states,"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Meaning that when we read our Bibles and see the truth in God's word, hope is knowing that what we've read is going to happen. It brings us comfort- even though we can't see it. Hope is a beautiful thing.

After hoping for our Hope Day all week, it felt like a tree of life when we got it. The small things like an hour long, in depth conversation over dinner was amazing...

So here is to a new month, new Hope Days, and another rollercoaster ride of rotations. :)

Love,
A Physician's Wife

Accepting Residency

"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." Phil. 4:11

We have a hash tag in the residency world called #itgetsbetter. We use it whenever we are really struggling with the stress, emotional strain, and overall heaviness with residency life. The hash tag is used to encourage each other knowing this way of life won't last forever. I must admit, it truly comforted me. I still love to read about fellow Dr's Wives that are on the other side of residency, who are taking the time to encourge us within the trenches that there is light on the other side. Now, please keep in mind, I am in no way trying to belittle that phrase, but I did learn something from it that I will remember for the rest of my life. 

Throughout PGY1 and the start of PGY2, we were resenting residency.

We blamed it for our unhappiness, our stress, and our lack of "time" to get into God's word. We neglected our Bibles, each other and our families using residency as our main reason.

Although residency is hard...is it impossible to maintain our relationship with God while we're in it? It shouldn't be!! And that is where we came to realize we needed to stop resenting residency and start accepting and embracing it instead. 

Paul had it right. He went through shipwrecks, imprisonment, beatings, and almost died and what did he say? "In whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."

Remembering that God wanted us here. 

DrH proposed to me in June of 2013. He was in his last year of medical school with Match Day and graduation ahead of him. Being star struck the day of the proposal, we set a date before we knew where he would land for residency.

DrH applied to a lot of residency programs. Three of which would allow him to stay in our home town. Five would have required him to move somewhere else. If he would have matched out of town, the wedding we spent 1 year planning, would have been postponed.

On Match Day, I watched him open an envelope with tears of joy streaming down his face. He matched in our home city. We could stay here. We could get married. Total God move. 

Realizing our purpose for the placement.

The Bible specifically says, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 1 Cor. 10:13. 

Why would God have placed us here, if we couldn't do it? He wouldn't put us in a life that we couldn't grow and learn to love Him more each and every day. He wouldn't put us in residency to make it impossible for us to read our Bibles or minister to those around us. We were using residency as our crutch when we should have been using it as fuel to dig deeper into our relationship with Christ.

Seeing residency as our gift.

DrH and I are slowly learning that residency is a huge gift. How many other couples can say they learned how to start a new marriage during one of the most stressful times in their lives? 

We've told each other, if we can get through this, we can get through anything. And I truly belive that.  

We are also learning how to be patient and how to CHERISH the moments we get with one another. 

As an example, this year was my favorite Christmas as an adult thus far. Wanna know why?

DrH decorated the Christmas tree with me this year when last year he worked a 14 hour shift.

He didn't work Christmas Eve or Christmas day when last year he worked 2 overnights.

We spent Christmas morning opening up gifts with each other when last year he was recovering from a 12hr night shift at the hospital. 

So what many couples might take for granted, we cherished. 

This year as I watched him read the card I picked out for him, I started to realize how truly thankful I was for this moment. Then I opened the card he gave me:

To my Wonderful Wife,

When God made you, He had me in mind...because there's no way on earth I'd have found a wonderful woman like you by myself.

After reading it, I latched onto him as we sat on the floor in front of our 5ft tall, $20 christmas tree from Walmart and sobbed. Who would have thought that small moment would have meant so much. But to us, it did. 

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How many people can say thats how they spent their Christmas morning? 

Even though we don't see each other as often as other couples, we have a truly amazing gift. Residency is teaching us how to cherish every moment that we do see each other. 

It is constantly teaching us.

Overall, being content in whatsoever state can be really hard. You watch your friends spend every night and every weekend with their spouses while yours is pouring 80 hrs a week at a hospital. When you look at what others have and think about how much you wish you could have it too - you will make yourself miserable. Why?

Because you're in this season of life for a reason.

God didn't intend for this life, this gift he gave us to be wished away. He wants us to embrace it, to grow within it, and to truly experience His love for us in ways we wouldn't learn any other way. 

I'm learning to accept this season of life as a beautiful gift. I hope Paul's attitude can minister to you as it did me. 

Love,

The Physician's Wife

A Year of Firsts

Two years ago my now mother-in-law handed me a book titled “Surviving Residency: A medical spouse guide to embracing the training years” by Kristen M. Math. It’s an amazing read. I was 23 years old, seriously dating a medical student who was approaching graduation, talking about engagement, marriage, and a life that seemed like a dream. I had no idea what God had in store for me.

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When my mother-in-law handed me that book, I tore into it anxious to know about what this whole “residency” thing was about. I made it to the preface and read this:

“The medical training years present unique challenges that test even the strongest relationships. Medical school and residency training require a commitment of time and emotional resources that can leave little room for family… Even with the 80 hour workweek rules firmly in place, many students and residents find that they are exhausted by the relentless cycle of stress.”

Wait. What?

I stopped dead in my reading tracks. 80-hour work week? What do you mean 80-hour workweek? Relentless cycle of stress? Exhaustion?

I’m not sure if anyone else felt this way, but I can honestly say I had no idea what being married to a physician would be like. Sure, we’d dated throughout medical school and it sucked. We didn’t get to see each other very much, and I knew he was stressed out a lot, but I was never face to face with it because we lived 30 minutes apart. But I figured, shoot, once we are married, we will be living together and even if he works long hours, I still get to see him. Little did I know…

Then before I knew it…he proposed.

After about a year of wedding planning, our lives began to speed up. Within a span of a few months, there was Match Day, graduation, our wedding and his first day as an intern.

BOOM.

And here I sit a year later after celebrating our first anniversary and the first year of residency, proud, extremely proud, that we made it through.

Residency is hard. In the beginning I remember looking at the calendar each month, as my DrH would post his schedule and crying. Yes. Crying. There were rotations that I absolutely dreaded; two weeks of overnight shifts, call nights, weekend calls, all of it in new rotations he’d never experienced before as a Doctor.  He was exhausted all the time, stressed beyond belief, and was scared to death that he might make a bad decision.

The first year of marriage is hard. I wasn’t used to being alone that much. I got to sleep in the same bed as my husband for about 1 month before his first night shift began. I had a lot of lonely nights and embarrassing breakdowns to friends and family. There were fights, abrupt changes of plans, and prepared dinner plates that never got eaten.

But there is a season for everything. And even though this past year was hard, SO hard, I can look back now and say, “We made it.” Not only did we make it, we grew so close to one another.

One year of marriage is complete. One year of residency is complete. And there are so many more years ahead of us that the years we spent in residency will look so small compared to what we will have someday. So as we say in our group, #itgetsbetter J

We established rules to fight by. We agreed to always be 100% honest with each other about our feelings, regardless. We communicate, we listen, and we pick our battles. We forgive each other like God forgave us, and we embrace the fact we are a team. We are going through this together, and we will make it together.

My DrH went from escaping to hospital bathrooms and breaking down over the uncertainty of his decisions to a newfound confidence in himself I’d never seen before.  I watched him work so hard to be a great physician and an amazing husband. He kicked some serious butt, and I am so proud of him.  

Granted, we are still growing. We are still experiencing our “firsts” as a married couple. But as most of you know, being married to a physician is hard work. It is emotionally draining, exhausting and stressful. And yet once you get your first “wins” together, you can start to look back and say, “We did it.”

So keep going.

"Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain." Phil. 2:16

Love, 

The Physician's Wife