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.