Who's your doccy?

Here's some more Thursday link-up lovins coming your way! I'm linking up with DJ at Medicine: A Love Story to share more med-love antics. Click on the icon above to visit her blog and to view this week's link up posts.

Today's topic: Which fictional doctor is your significant other most like?

If you aren't in a relationship with a medical significant other (let's hereafter refer to them as med sig-O's, shall we?), allow me to let you in on a little secret: all these medical shows they've got on tv nowadays, while admittedly pumping up the drama and sex a bit for ratings, can actually come pretty close to portraying the different doc personalities you might come across at your local hospital.

Say whaaaat?! They've got McDreamys up in that biz?

Yes. And McSteamys, people. Just check out the hottttay I married.

(The one exception I'll make to this is that we've yet to come across a Doogie Howser, although sometimes attendings treat med students like 14 year olds.)

That being the case, when I started to think about today's topic, it wasn't too tough to pinpoint things in on-screen docs' personalities that reminded me of D. The trouble was, there wasn't any one fictional doc who fit the bill completely. So I did what any reasonable person faced with such a conundrum would do: I made a love-child.

The heart, soul, and gosh-I-could-just-sit-here-on-this-gurney-in-the-basement-eating-potato-chips-and-waxing-poetic-with-you-all-day-ness of George O'Malley. Wit, humor, and elevated probability of finding himself in the thick of some whacky hijinks akin to J.D. That's my guy.

But Neil Patrick Harris will totally play him once we sell our story to FX (it has be a network that can air the word "sh*t").

sh*t residents say, v2

Maybe it's the part where they're noodley?!

A place to call "home"

There are a lot of habits that D and I have slipped in to over the years. One of my favorites is that we'll usually find ourselves in deep, soul-searching conversations during road trips. It's something we've been doing since we were teenagers, and I absolutely love it. One of us will come up with an open-ended question, and we'll spend time piecing together our thoughts by talking through them out loud. {To be fair, this is not the only way we pass the time in the car. There are frequent breaks for singing at the top of our lungs, dance parties from the waist up, and road-raging with a sailor-like mouth. Okay, so that last part is just me. I am the worst backseat driver.}

On a post-call day trip we took early last week, our conversation of choice was this: If you had to pick one place to call home for the rest of your life, what places would be in the running? And why?

This was a really tough question for me. I tend to fall in love with cities because I'm a sucker for nostalgia--once I've had a positive memorable experience somewhere, it has a special piece of my heart forever. And on the flip side, I can't really imagine living in places that I haven't at least visited.  Here are the five cities that I came up with:

City meets sea, tummy meets Mexican food.  

Sunny for 360 days out of the year? A world of yes.

After living here for five formative years, there will always be a tug at my heart to return.

 

Crisp air and clean streets.

Ridiculously fit people with a love for the great outdoors.

 I've never met a Coloradan who wasn't (a) incredibly kind, and (b) hilarious.

Dude. This place is, like... so chill, brah.

All the beachy perks of San Diego, but without the crowds or traffic.

My parents lived here in their early twenties. I can't get enough of visiting their old haunts.

The greatest city in America.

You will never have a better meal than at Girl and the Goat.

I realize both of the above are bold claims, but after four years of frequent visits, I stand behind those statements 100%.

Sailboats, seafood, and sensational people-watching.

 It practically always feels like fall weather here. Read: boots and scarves for.ev.er.

I agreed to a lifetime with Dr. D while standing in Crissy Field, so it seems only fitting that now this is the closest "big city" to visit during residency. I can't wait to explore it again and again over the years.

So there you have it! D's list was fairly similar to mine, except he included New York City and Los Angeles instead of Ventura and Denver. What about you guys--what's missing from our list of possibilities? Where do you hope you end up?

The 'schmerz

It's that time again, folks! Today I'm linking up with DJ at Medicine: A Love Story to share more med-love antics. Click on the icon below to visit her blog and learn how to take part as a blogger, or at least see what everyone else has to say about today's topic.

The prompt: What's the most interesting medical fact you've learned vicariously?

 
Since Dr. D and I are going on five years of the medically graphic over-sharing dinner conversations (four years of med school and over half of intern year), there isn't much that shocks me anymore. Oh, to be again the wide-eyed innocent who nearly spit out her cereal after moving the Sunday morning paper only to uncover a textbook page full of diseased penises (penisi? I really feel like that should be penisi... can someone with some clout in med linguistics get on that?).

If you've been with me from the beginning of this blog--just Mom? okay, cool, no worries--then you may recall me blogging about a few medical facts that I learned and deemed traumatic enough to warrant infliction upon others. Like discovering that I didn't drink enough urine as an embryo, or that death-breath is a thing, or even what it's like to inhale the smell of burned flesh.

But I think that out of all of the medical knowledge I've unwittingly amassed, my favorite factoids tend to be the ones regarding medical terminology. I'm a fan of words. Always have been. Give me a medical phrase that sounds like a Harry Potter spell, and I will be entertained for hours. Seriously, hours, if not days.

So imagine my glee when D came home one day and said, "You know what's a fun word?

"Mittelschmerz."

Um, yes. Yes it is. Particularly when attempting to say it three times quickly, a la Beetlejuice. I loved this new word! I took to that sucker like a toddler who just learned her first curse word, and he let me walk around the house jabbering about it for a solid half hour before telling me what it actually meant. Why didn't I inquire about the meaning, you ask? Because I. love. words. and I was too distracted.

Too bad it means "the abdominal pains occurring between menstrual periods." Way to take a fun word and assign it to something that is NO JOKE, Germans.

Overnight call: the good, the bad, & the ugly

Dr. D is currently on a rotation that has him working mostly nights this month. It has been, in a word, challenging. I'd like to share the good, the bad, and the ugly with you all from our experiences, but being the eternal optimist that I am, I'm going to save the good for last and end on a high note.

The sleep schedule.  

We are both pretty exhausted. D is living the life of a vampire. As much as the middle school version of me wished she could be dating Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it is not as sexy or as awesome as I thought it would be. I still have to function in the land of the living, so our paths cross for a couple hours in the morning (as in, we sleep next to each other during that time) and then again for a few hours before D goes back in to work. And Jdog is getting twice the sleep he usually does (at night with me, and then he naps again with D when he comes home), so he's like a groggy dog zombie pretty much all the time. It's zombies and vampires up in this joint, and it ain't pretty.

No, seriously. The sleep schedule blows.

Post-call days! 

If I were only allowed to give one piece of advice to couples who are new to overnight call schedules, it would be this: make the most of your post-call days. Date each other. Go on adventures. Explore what is likely to be a new city for you both. Fight that urge to stay in bed all day... you won't regret it, I promise. All I know for certain is that it's how we are staying sane this month.

Care to share any of your good/bad/uglies about residency (or any other life transition, for that matter)?

Are you high??

Let's be honest: if I'm going to participate in my first blogging link up, who better to link up with than one of my first blogging friends-who-is-also-a-stranger-but-not-really-because-yay-internet? DJ writes a blog I visit every day, and I follow it because she makes me laugh and generally feel like I'm not the only one whose life has kinda flown the cuckoo's nest because I'm in love with a guy in the medical profession.

Imagine my glee when, after a prolonged blogging hiatus, I returned to find that DJ had just set out on a new blogging endeavor called Medicine: A Love Story. The only thing better than experiencing our own shenanigans at home related to being in residency is reading about other people's shenanigans during residency. It has a normalizing effect, and I love it.

So, on to today's link up.

The prompt: What's the craziest/funniest conversation/experience you've had as a result of sleep deprivation?

 
There have been plenty of screwball conversations between Dr. D and I that have been tinged by Step-study dazes and post-call sleep deprivation. To wit, this particular text exchange between us as D went to get drug tested (chillax! D hasn't developed a drug habit. Testing is a required procedure for all interns rotating at our children's hospital) after being on an overnight shift:

I'd like to think this illustrated two things rather nicely: (1) We're super mature about drugs, and (2) D was too tired to even remember where he lived. I really hope they didn't attribute his blood-shot eyes and disorientation to something else.

sh*t residents say

Inspired by this post by fellow empathizer DJ on her delightful blog,

Medicine: A Love Story.

2013

{I could explain this photo, but I'll let your  imagination run wild}

So, hi.

Last time we spoke, Dr. D wasn't actually a doctor yet. And if we're going to get all technical (which we are because this is my blog and I do what I want, obvs), I wasn't a master yet. I like to joke that my degree sounds cooler, particularly when I make claims to be a doctor's master. But I digress.

When I think about the fact that I posted a whopping 3 times in 2012 (dismal!), it would appear to have been an uneventful year. On the contrary, it was rather chaotic. Yet somehow we find ourselves on the other side of that tunnel, panting from holding our breath and a little frayed around the edges from the speed of it all, but ultimately in a place that is exactly where we want to be.

But now here's the weird part: D has had to take off at a full sprint again, and I'm taking a breather (somewhat involuntarily, thanks to a tough and limited job market). I'm hoping that with some of this free time I find myself with--and I keep trying to tell myself to enjoy it while I can--I'll be able to get back into the swing of blogging and connecting with other people who are in med couples across the country.  Because let's be honest, we have some pretty great stories to tell.

With that, I say: bring it, 2013.

Dodging Stress Bullets

I had one of those forgotten-class-stress-dream moments today.

You know the one I'm talking about. You're just going along in your dream, minding your own dreamy business, when the dream-version of a kid you haven't seen since like seventh grade is all, "Man, are you ready for this calculus final today?" and you're like, "Wait, I'm in a calculus class?!" and they're like "Yeah, you've been enrolled this whole time... I was wondering why you haven't been going to class!" and then you're like (1) thanks a lot, jerk, for reminding me about this now, and (2) I have to go take this freaking final right now! And you're super stressed out and you don't even consider the possibility that you could just drop the dang class because you're just going to be a liberal arts major anyway.

And then you wake up and you're like, whew, dodged that derivative bullet.  Relief.

I had a similar experience today, except without the dreaming. I just got this overwhelming sense that there was all this stuff that I should have already done--finishing classwork in the degree program that I'm wrapping up, finding myself a job in California, figuring out where we're going to live--and I froze for a second and thought to myself, what have I been doing with my time?!

And then I realized it's only been a week since we found out we'll be moving. Breathe, self. Chillax.

Dr. D has a job. I've already applied to one of my own, and there are other prospects on the horizon. There is no shortage of places to live, for crying out loud. It's a major city. And once I write a few more papers, I'll be done with my Masters.

Yes, there's a lot to do over the next couple of months, but we will get through it.

Sometimes you just have to smack yourself awake and put things into perspective.  And something tells me I'm going to have to do that quite a bit before we move.

To those of you in a similar situation, what are some things you do to keep things in perspective?

To the future!

{many thanks to Dr. P for this artistic interpretation of our future}

Yes Day

Let me see if I still remember how to do this:

Wassaaaaaaaaap?!

(too 1999?)

Oh, hello there.

(too nonchalant?)

I've been a bad, bad blogger.

(a bit self-deprecating and trite, but that about sums it up.)

Hmm... how to explain this in a succinct way without boring you to tears? There's really no better way to describe the past five months---holy heck, five?!---other than to say the following:

• Applying to residencies is an arduous process for all parties involved.
• It's also a life-consuming process.
• It's also very personal.
• We made it through.

As much as I wanted to take to the blog and agonize about every significant and insignificant detail of the residency application and the interviews and the travel and the debt (oh my word, the debt), I just couldn't do it.  Not only to protect Dr. D's privacy, but for my own sanity.  And believe me, I think I saved you from some incredibly repetitious and anxiety-ridden prose.

What's that?  I could have blogged about other things, you say?  To be sure, that might have been an option.  But to omit such a large part of what was happening in our lives would have felt entirely inauthentic to me, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

But here I am, ready to take another crack at this blogging thing, as Dr. D and I find ourselves on the cusp of transition once again.  I know I would kick myself down the line if I didn't document this pivotal time, so here we go.

That, and I realized the internet has been entirely Jdog-deficient as of late.  So here's to that:

Okay, moving on.

Today, dear Internet, was "Yes or No Day" (hereafter referred to as YON Day---just roll with it) in the world of fourth year medical students.  Today was the day that fourth years were informed whether or not they have successfully matched into a residency program.  Mind you, this is not Match Day.  As you can see by the rapidly dwindling countdown, Match Day is this Friday.  YON Day (roll with it, I say!) is kind of like your mean older sibling who would find an awesome toy on the taller shelf in the store and then would say "WANNA SEE IT?!" as they held it juuuust out of your reach while evoking the technicality that you were, in actuality, seeing it and would lord it over you until Mom eventually made them hand it to you.

Match Day is Mom.  YON Day is your jerk of a sibling.

In the spirit of positivity, Dr. D and I had taken to calling YON Day just straight-up "Yes Day."  It worked, because he matched!  And also he's awesome, so that might have been a contributing factor.

So, on to Friday.  On to mimosas and elation and tears and bittersweetness and celebration.  On to our future.

100 & 11

Before we get started, I just want to say that this is my 100th post.  Whaaaaat?  Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming:

Out of the past five months, Dr. D has only been able to spend about two of them here at home with me, so you better believe I had to do something cute for him when he came home from his last away rotation.

I baked his favorite cookies, which was a given.  But I wanted to do more.  You see, Dr. D has always been the more creative partner when it comes to romance.  I honestly have no idea where this man gets all of his ideas, but I've told him on multiple occasions that he could start a romance consulting business and people would pay good money to buy his ideas.  He is THAT good.  His momma raised him right.

But it kinda puts the pressure on when I try to come up with romantic gestures of my own, know what I mean?  So I decided to look for inspiration in things that have been meaningful to us both since the beginning of our relationship---you know, back when we were 15 and sickeningly adorable and awkward.*  And then it hit me: love notes.

That's how this whole thing started, 11 years ago.  That day set the tone, and from then on we were always writing love notes and poems and drawings of stick figures on napkins to each other.  But then at some point life got busy, text messaging happened, and the notes dwindled in frequency.  So I decided it was time to bring them back.

For Dr. D's homecoming, I put a bunch of little notes for him all over the house---some punny, some with quotes from our favorite movies, some with inside jokes.  He didn't notice most of them when he first got back, which I'd like to attribute to my dazzling presence being an obvious distraction, but with a little prodding he finally began to see them all over the house.  I'd have to say the best part was hearing him laugh randomly each time he would find one.

*I'd like to think we're still as adorable now, just less awkward.  Maybe.  Thank goodness our 15-year-old awkwardness is forever immortalized in pictures, like this one which is framed and sitting in our living room.  It was taken exactly 11 years ago from today, the day after we started dating.

Weekend Wisdom

 {Loved this little framed poem we found in a local art shop this weekend}

Some observations from the weekend:

1. If you ever thought that bacon and gouda cheese might be a worthwhile culinary pairing, allow me to assure you: it is stellar.
2. I am normally a very empathetic person.  But sometimes my job makes me want to drop-kick underage drunk kids.  Does that make me a bad person?
3. Sure, we really don't do great at our Sunday night trivia games.  But if I'm ever that person who actually knows off the top of my head who the Times Person of the Year was in 1952, please host a "get a life" intervention for me.  K, thanks.
4. I love my husband.  (And now that that disclaimer is out there...) When he decides to play dubstep music on his laptop for hours on end, it makes me want break things.  Namely his laptop.
5. There are still way too many local restaurants and shops around this little town that we need to make it to before we leave.  If I don't get back into a regular exercise routine soon, this spells disaster for my badonk.  Just sayin'.  BACON and GOUDA, people.

Love is.

I know you haven't heard from me in a little bit, but it's because I'm on that that cloud up there.  Yep, that ninth one from the bottom.  I'm just sittin' pretty up here, enjoying the view.

Ladies and gents, there is a Dr. D in the house.  And he's done with away rotations.  Donezo.  Even better yet, he's a fourth year medical student and---today?  Well, today he got to come home from the hospital at 3:30pm.  It was still light outside.

That's what's up.

We are currently cozied-up in a booth at my favorite coffee shop, and as I bask in the glow of our rediscovered togetherness, I decided to compose a list of what love is to me, based on the past few days.

That's my two cents, anyway.  It evolves daily.  How about you?

What's Good

It has been an emotional couple of weeks for me and mine; it feels like we have been living the epitome of "when it rains, it pours" lately.  When times get tough, I find that it helps to remember the things that are good, and the things that are still making me smile.  Call me a hopeless optimist, but I'd like to think it keeps me sane and grounded.

So as I greet this weekend with open arms and heart, I hope to usher out the bad, the sad, and the stressful by appreciating some of the things that are just plain right.

Starting this afternoon, I will no longer be living the bachelorette life.  My partner in holey-jeans-wearing crime comes home to me today.  Hallelujah!

Speaking of that guy, I have him to thank for bringing me out of my baking slump.  Dr. D's favorite cookies (recipe here) are fresh and ready for the nom-age.

My coping mechanisms are typically either chocolate or new nail polish colors.  Have a guess at which one won out this week.

And of course, J-dog continues to be an endless source of entertainment.  Last night, Silence of the Lambs happened to be on television.  I chewed my nails through the whole thing and J-dog slept---until Precious the dog got yanked down into the pit in the ground by that conniving kidnappee.  After that, J-dog was glued to the television, no doubt to see to it that Precious got the proper veterinary attention after the whole ordeal.

...and: The Lion King is coming back to theaters in 3D.  I mean really.  That's just great.

Dear Dr. D

Dear Dr. D,

Remember a week ago when I was super giddy because you were almost in my 10 day forecast?  Well now you're in my 5 day forecast.  It says right here: "Saturday: a high of 75 degrees, low of 50, and 100% chance of soggy kisses."

I apologize in advance for crying tears of happiness all over your sweet face.  And for looking a hot mess when I do it.

Let's never do this again, deal?

Loves,
Your Mrs.

P.S.  It's a good thing you'll be back soon, because this guy is obviously getting WAY too comfortable in the alpha male role:

Junk Food for the Soul

Two days ago, I found myself sitting alone in my car in the nearly empty parking lot of a movie theater on the outskirts of town.  It had been too long to remember since I had eaten anything from a fast food drive-through, and yet at this moment in time, I held a small mango pineapple smoothie in one hand and a McDonald's three-piece Chicken Selects in the other.  The radio played at a deafening decibel, and as a song by Darwin Deez sounded over the airwaves, I started to cry.  And then I started to laugh at myself, at the ridiculousness of it all.  I also distinctly remember snorting, which made me laugh-cry harder.


Two observations: (1) Grief is a crazily convoluted emotion, and (2) eating while laugh-crying feels awkward.  But in that moment, it was what I needed to do---I'm sure of it.  We all have that tipping point, where the surface tension of bottled up emotions finally spills over, and apparently that moment was mine.

My reactions to grief have ranged in my lifetime from convincing myself that the benevolent spirit of a loved-one resided in my family's spare bedroom, to a full-blown anxiety of flying in airplanes, and even to a habit of changing the radio station whenever a Modest Mouse song is on.  And I guess this time around, I needed some junk food and an upbeat, goofy love song.*

Do yourself a favor.  Don't ever let anyone tell you that there's one way to grieve that's better than others, because my life experiences so far have taught me that not only is that not the case, but you can never predict how you'll react to grief.  Don't limit yourself.

Life is so beautiful, so precious.  Gosh, I hope you're enjoying it.

*Thank goodness Dr. D will be home in a week to remind me how nutritionally gross McDonald's is, because so help me, I didn't think the chicken was half bad...

Friday Favorites

Today, I feel the need to celebrate one of life's greatest mysteries, and one of my favorite things in the whole world: a puppy's ability to make nearly anything downright adorable.

{Found on Pinterest, source unfortunately not provided... 

let me know if you know where he's from!}

See?  SEE?  This little dude is pissed, and yet you probably don't even care because he's fantastically furry and cute beyond comprehension.

I had the chance to puppy-sit for a friend a couple of weekends ago, and was reminded of how much I love every move puppies make---but also how much work they are.  The dying-of-cuteness moment of the weekend was probably when the little guy stopped in his tracks in the midst of a wrestling match with J-dog, sat down right in front of me, and proceeded to do this:




Is there anything better than puppy hiccups?  Few things, I'd venture.

Stink-face States

Dr. D and I on the phone, going over which programs he should send his residency application to:

Me: "CALIFOR---

Him: "Why don't we just start at the top of the list and work our way down alphabetically?"

Me: "---NYeahhhh, that's a great idea.  Makes complete sense."

Him: "Okay.  Alabama."

Me: "........"

Him: "You're making a stink-face, aren't you?"

Me: "...yes.  You're not?"

Him: "What about Arkansas?"

Me: "........"

Him: "This does not bode well."

I have this problem where I can't control my face.  Or at least, I can't control my face in reaction to something I don't like or am anticipating not liking.  My loving husband knows this about me---he's had about sixteen years of experience dealing with how my face looks in these situations, and has dubbed it my "stink-face."

I'm pretty sure we all have a version of this face, am I right?  And in our case, mine was a useful tool for determining residency prospects.  Much to Dr. D's chagrin.

Don't get me wrong---to my knowledge, there is nothing innately horrible about Alabama, Arkansas, or any other stink-face state.  I'm sure we could find redeeming qualities about each of them.

I just can't control the face, people.

All told, we still ended up applying to a whopping 70 ENT programs (out of 105 total in the nation, some of which are military only).  We've got to cast a wide net, because this is a tough specialty to match in to.  There are people who literally do not match anywhere, and that scares the daylights out of us.

Luckily I know that Dr. D is brilliant, has great scores and experiences, and can pretty much charm the heck out of even the most demure docs.  At the risk of sounding boastful, I'm confident enough for the both of us that we'll match.  And we are determined to make the most out of next year's adventure in our new, non-stink-face home.

Anybody else have stink-face states?

Successful Submission

“Have you submitted?”

This question has been buzzing in the air among the medically-inclined crowd since the clock rolled over to 12:01am on September 1st.  While I wish so much that this referred to submitting to an inclination towards regular exercise, or even submitting to the urge to eat loads of chocolate cake, what this is actually in reference to is the submission of ERAS—an online application for residency programs across the nation.

We submitted on Saturday.  We submitted so hard that it cost us like $10,000. 

Okay, not really... it actually only cost a fraction of that, but still.  Beaucoup bucks, guys.  We had to shell out just so these hot-shot programs will even consider looking at Dr. D’s application.  Honestly, his app is so pristine that they should probably be thanking and paying us.  I mean really.

Here’s the way residency applications work, as far as I can tell:

• You update your CV, complete with hobbies, and then realize that you can’t remember what your hobbies are because you’ve been in MED SCHOOL for the past three years.  So you ask your wife to remind you what your hobbies are, and she tries to slip “loving your wife” in as a hobby and you’re like “Lol, cute.  But not appropes.” 
• You write a personal statement, and agonize over each word and its synonyms, only stopping yourself when you realize there is no synonym for “the,” so you might as well be done with it.
• You chew off all of your fingernails as you wait for the rock-star docs who agreed to write your letters of rec to actually submit the letters, and pray about ten times a day that they (a) remember to do it, and (b) put the correct name on the letter. 
• You choose which residency programs to send your application to, and pay based on the number of places you send it.  Some people research every detail of the residency program and its surrounding areas, and selectively and systematically identify which programs they want to work for.  Others utilize their wife’s stink-face method (more on that later). 
• You click submit and wait for the interview offers to come.   And according to your loving wife, they will come. 

Prayers and crossed appendages (fingers, toes, whatever you got) welcome.  And for those of you who have submitted or are about to, congratulations!  We’re so close!