Vacation!

Hey look, enough time to write more than 2 sentences.

Let's review the last few months: medical school is a lot of work. Now we're all caught up.

One more level of resolution: I've decided to go into internal medicine. Trouble and I are hashing out our list of acceptable places to apply for residency. Next year should be far more manageable except I can't handle more manageable and will be teaching a course in the spring. I'm writing a personal statement, which is the sort of exercise that I hate. The only exercise I've been getting is biking to work and it is substantially more than no exercise - Madison does have a lot going for it. The children continue to be awesome and continue to grow up too fast. We had a party where the invite was "The B and J didn't get divorced during the third year of medical school celebration," and all the married grad students who couldn't make it sent a note saying the sentiment was exactly right for them, as well. Now we are really all caught up.

Vacation is going too fast and has not involved much staring at the wall. I've been having an awesome time with the boys - day trips and just walking around the block and just reading books and just nothing-ing. Somehow, I have managed to both to not enough work (I have not even opened the files for my manuscripts) and too much work (not enough staring at the wall). There is always more to do. Now, my work priority is getting a clue before starting Cardiology.

In May, Trouble had taken the kids to the grandparents for nearly two weeks. It was the first time I had been without a child around in 3 years. And the first time I was home without a child in almost 4 years. (Where "alone" means "during my Surgery rotation - 5:30 AM to 6:00PM 5 days a week plus some weekend work" - but it is still nice to walk into the house exactly as I left it.) It was an important recalibration time for me and there are many parts of my prior life I am rediscovering now that I am hormonally back to my prior life self. Like music - I have had the radio off since I got pregnant with Turing and I am now devouring everything I can find through Pandora. Like sewing. Like reading. Like considering having Vegan Month some month when I am off service. See, totally old school me.

6:30 bedtime?

The babies have been sick. Very sick. Influenza sick for a week. All they want to do is sit on you sick. Poor babies.

I had been doing fairly well with my work schedule. I felt like I had hit my groove with work, I work hard, I come home and see the babies when I can. I've shaved off every second I can to see them and that is just the way it is. And when it is vacation, I take them away for 3 weeks. So it goes.

But these days, they just want someone to sit on and read books. And I get home and we do that for a little bit and then they go to bed early. So I essentially do not see them very much. And it is exceptionally little for the time when they just want to sit on the couch together and read books. And have a backrub.

I'm on Peds, though, so I'm seeing lots of other people's sick kids. They're (almost always) cute and I am always sympathetic. That's nice. What is not so nice is the total lack of evidence for a lot of what they do. Research opportunities abound (good) but dissemination may require a lot of regime change (sounds like actual work). I am weighing my options.

Losing The Fear

I'm sitting here and I should be cramming for the (multiple choice) exam I have in two hours. But I am not, I guess I just don't have The Fear I used to . . . it isn't like I haven't been studying. I've read the entire book for the rotation twice through over the last six weeks. I'm reviewing some stuff that didn't stick today. But I'm pretty calm.

I do believe in maximizing my efficiency and I recognize that I tend to get more done in any one category of stuff when I don't do it all the time. Efficiency maximization is a skill I have learned both over graduate school and over parenting. It means getting enough sleep, eating regularly, getting some exercise, and minimizing my guilt about time spent with my family. It means being focused when I work in both short and long term goals. It means using my time and stopping if I am going through the motions without gain.

I keep getting shocked by how other students use their time, as if the goal is to put the most time in and not to learn the most or provide the best patient care. There was the guy who got so little sleep that he fell asleep while talking to a patient. There was the guy who would study standing up so he wouldn't fall asleep. I think that is the sign you should close the book, sleep, and study the next day.

These last two weeks have been pretty relaxed - there weren't a lot of surgeries and I generally got out of the hospital pretty early. One of the residents seemed annoyed that I would take some of my "time off" to go to the gym. He wanted us to just stick around and put in face time. Which is really rather insulting. We certainly didn't get this far by slacking off all the time. I think I know how to manage my time effectively if I got my PhD done in 4 years while making two babies. Grrrr.

But even with all that, I should probably actually be studying right now. This really is my last chance to pound in the table of etiologies of primary amenorrhea.

A semi-triumphant return

The first two weeks of medical school have gone well in a good-attitude sort of way.  I was on gynecological oncology, which was obviously not for me.  It is like high stakes gambling all the time with life and death and morbidity . . . very interesting in a decision analysis sort of way, not so interesting in the day-to-day.

I was in the OR last week for a very involved surgery (removing some very large cancer masses, resectioning some bowel, removing some other organs) and spending a lot of my mental effort figuring out how to stand in one place for five hours without having my knees and back ache.  The attending turned to me and said, "You're not going to be a surgeon.  If you were, you'd be like 'OMG this is the most amazing thing ever!' Don't get me wrong, you're happy to be here and involved, but this is obviously not your calling."   Spot on, dude.

But it was interesting to be in there for a few weeks and see all the crazy things we can do to people.  Humans are amazing.  And I really focused on learning the sorts of things that I will need to know later.  For instance, I got to feel lots of abdominal masses.  This was useful because when I didn't know what I was feeling for, it is hard to say I didn't feel it.  I can now say with confidence when I don't feel masses.  Go me.

I have experienced my least favorite thing so far in medical school: walking to the bus at 5 in the morning with icy sidewalks.  The worst.  Also, having the bus show up 24 minutes late on the day it was -12 was not OK.  Not that I was counting.  Good thing I own snow pants.

And I am not very excited about the hours I've been putting in.  I haven't been feeling too bad about not being home, since I seem to have mental clicked over to, "medical school requires a lot of time, all my free time is spent with my kids, when I can get vacation, I'll take it" which is going to be the way things are for the next 4.5 years.  But it still sucks to not be home very much.  Those boys are growing up too fast.  Huxley is poking pineapple with forks and Turing is singing songs and adding on his fingers.  Jerks.

Don't do it if you don't like it

Let us all remember, blogging is not a chore.

OB/Gyn starts on Monday. This is exciting because I don't think I can legitimately call myself a doctor until I've caught more babies than my computer programmer partner. And after four whole weeks of vacation, I feel mentally rested enough to take on medical school for a while again. Though I'm not sure I'm rested enough to go straight through until June 15, which is the current plan. Or maybe I am just that tough. Also, after spending nearly three weeks constantly with my kids, I should avoid my too-much-work-too-little-family guilt for at least two weeks into this next round of rotations.

Our vacation was lovely. The train worked magically except for the part where we had to wake the kids up in the middle of the night to catch the train. In all, there were no melt-downs while in transit and very few overall. We did a bunch of fun stuff (see their blogs) and enjoyed the weather and just hung out. It was like an actual vacation. And I managed to exactly offset all the Xmas cookies I ate with running.

As Turing becomes more cognizant, we really have got to figure out our holiday plan. We opened gifts on Christmas, which we called "present day." and all the lights were "holiday lights." And he didn't care where the presents came from, but next year he might, so we really have got to figure out Santa . . . I figure it is fine to do Santa "for pretend" which is as good as real for kids. We'll see how it works out next year. Next year, when the kids are clued in enough to count who is getting more presents and all that fun stuff.

This year, I've decided that I will do some resolutions despite feeling like I really have too much on my plate already. The are on a weekly basis and include:
1. Not feeling guilty about exercising three times*
2. Making bread with Turing
3. One whole family sit down meal

*the guilt comes from knowing that the time I spend at the gym is just more time away from helping around the house/with the kids when I am already not doing my fair share. But it needs to be OK for me to take care of me.

Maybe I need a reward system for how many weeks I complete.

Plans, right

I've been on vacation for weeks. I had this plan of actually writing an entry every single day to get back in the habit. We can see exactly how far that has gotten. And all those other things I thought I might do have also not been done. I guess I'll get started.

I hauled the kids down to my parents' house without Trouble (or any other adult) on the train. It went shockingly well. None of us had a melt down, including me. The kids were in top form in Chicago where we got several compliments on how well we were doing. And good form in DC. They even ate, which they do not do well when they are over stimulated. And Huxley napped at nap time. And Turing slept on the top bunk despite being beyond excited.

Eating on the train was weird as I presume it was What People Eat Normally. Not a single fruit or vegetable. Well, potato chips, I guess. Or juice. It was all white bread and soda. Not really my usual style. But the kids ate their french toast and their Mac and cheese and continued to function. And we went back to our room and pulled out the dried fruit and soy milk.

It was good that I had a week at home to clean my basement before coming on this trip, so I could warm up to being a mom again. The basement was almost done when I left. And the main goals (find the floor, get to the appliances, change furnace filter) were accomplished. It felt good except that it felt bad that I spent my vacation week cleaning my f'n basement instead of anything else. Like, say, sewing.

In any case, I was all warmed up to be All Mom All The Time by the time I left. I lasted an entire week before Needing a little time to myself. Go me. This is good since I'll be back in medical school in 10 days and never see my kids again until June.

A very exciting week

This is my week off from medical school while staying home. During which time I've done things like get the oil changed in the car and spackled the cracks in the kitchen. It's awesome. The amazing thing about medical school is that once the test is over, the test is over. There aren't random things hanging over my head for me to get done. Unlike graduate school, which is still hanging. I'll get to that next week.

But this week is all about catching up on my life. I've got all kinds of things in process: cleaning the basement, cleaning the fridge, migrating Turing's old blog into his new blog, reviewing some articles, updating Turing's preschool forms, gift shopping. My goal is to not half-ass it and actually get all this done by the end of the week instead of leaving things where they are now. For instance, two shelves in the fridge scrubbed, 2 dirty. And my friend with a truck (gotta have one, but I have two just in case) is coming over to haul away a load of stuff for the thrift store and then a load of stuff for the dump. Awesome. It is like tangible progress one can hold in their hands.

Then, next week, I'll get back to the graduate school business. Promise.