It’s 4:15 a.m., beep, beep, beep. The alarm has reared its ugly head once again. In a uniform groan, my husband rolls out of the bed, and I roll over burying my head under a pillow. Without a word, he steps into the bathroom to shower, shave, and get dressed. I manage to make it back to sleep just in time for him to kiss me on the forehead and tell me he’s leaving. I don’t remember if I even answered him, uh-huh,” “I love you,” or if I thought to myself, “just go already.” I know I’ve done each of them at one point. Today is Wednesday; the middle of the week, but it could easily be a Saturday or Sunday.
He waltzes into the hospital at 5:15 a.m., and runs by the cafeteria. There is no food being served yet, but he manages to grab a Mountain Dew before heading to the elevator. He isn’t a coffee drinker, so he needs to find his caffeine somewhere. He manages to make it to rounds, and then heads to conference. Conference is where my husband spends his time trying to stay awake (my sources say that he doesn’t succeed at this very often) listening to lectures and giving presentations.
After conference, he heads to the operating room and prepares for the surgeries that are lined up for the day. He makes sure his first patient is prepped and ready to go. The phone rings in the operating room and the nurse puts the caller on speaker.
“Hey, it’s Dr. Jones,” the caller pauses for audible chewing, “is the patient ready yet?”
“Yes. The anesthesiologist has just finished putting her to sleep. I’ve prepared the knee, the instruments are lined up, and the field is draped.”
“All right.”
At about 3:30 p.m., in the middle of his third surgery of the day, my husband gets a text page. The O.R. nurse reads it aloud, “I need to talk to you. Please call.” He decides he will call me in between cases. He doesn’t get a chance.
At 8:00 p.m. he finishes his last case and calls me on the way to his car.
“Have you eaten? I didn’t get a chance all day. I can pick something up on the way home.”
“We’ve eaten. The kids are in bed. Did you get my page?”
“Yeah, sorry, I couldn’t call.”
“Mmm, hmm.” I say, not fully believing that he couldn’t take one minute to call home. “Well, I wanted to let you know that you got a call about the loan, but it’s too late to call back now.”
“I’ll call them back tomorrow.”
Just two years ago, I was looking at residency idealistically. I had a strong marriage to a caring man. He wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, and I was going to support him. 80 hours a week sounded like a lot, but it wasn’t too much. After all (I did the math in my head), there are 168 hours in a week. Therefore, he will be home more than half of the time. Logical. Doable. I can handle a surgical residency.
And so, in the final months of medical school, I looked ahead to our new life brightly. I gave birth to our second child. We prepared for a move into a new city, into a new home, and enrolled our oldest child at his new school. We knew that what we were beginning would be difficult, but we would face it together.
My idealism didn’t last long -neither did the “rule” that my husband must work less than 80 hours per week. He has worked some weeks that fell close to 80 hours, but for the most part, weeks of over 100 hours are common. He is asked to lie about the hours he works, and he does. He frequently under reports the hours he works, and the other residents do the same.
I must take on all household and child-rearing responsibilities. My husband can never be counted upon to pick up our son from school, pay the electric bill on time, make it home for dinner, mow the grass, or change the oil in his car, let alone the countless minutia of tasks that fill the day of an average parent who works less than half the hours. I am left with an enormous burden. In essence I am a single, but married parent.
These hours have put an enormous strain on my family. My husband and I have been married for nine years, that weren’t always easy, but this is the first time in all those years you will hear words like separation and divorce uttered in our house. My husband has nothing left to give our family when he comes home. He is, in essence, owned by residency.
In the precious time that my husband does have free, we are left deciding where to best spend that time. Should we run errands that have been neglected, play with the children, go out together as a married couple, do household chores to relieve some of my burden, allow him to sleep, allow me to sleep? When is it that we are all supposed to sleep anyway?
Most of the time it comes down to taking our list of things we should do and picking one or two that absolutely must get done. The air conditioning in his car has needed to be fixed for three months now, but I guess it won’t get done until it moves closer to the top of the list. Spending time cuddling with your daughter has to take precedence over your own comfort. Though he has received a few jabs from co-workers regarding the back of his shirt being wet with sweat.
We get most of our talking done when he is driving home from a 32-hour stint. He calls me from his cell phone, in part so that he won’t fall asleep while at the wheel. Sadly, this is also our time, my time to unload on him all of the wonderful elements in my day. “The baby tried to flush the remote control down the toilet. While I was fishing it out she got into the shampoo and dumped it.”
Sleep deprivation is hard to describe, really. Unless you’ve been without a good night’s sleep in a few years, I don’t think you’ll understand. I’ve seen horror movies with zombies that appear to have more life than my husband on some days. Though, zombies do have the same pallor and bloodshot eyes. I will often find myself talking to my husband, only to realize that he hasn’t responded in a few minutes. It doesn’t matter if we are standing up, he can fall asleep mid-conversation. I think subconsciously, he classifies this as a good time to sleep because if his hands slip he won’t kill anyone. He is never refreshed. He is always tired. We joke that if he ever got a decent period to sleep, he would be the next Rip Van Winkle.
“Honey?”
“Urrrhhh, huuuuh, sorry, what, did you say something?”
“I was asking if you called the bank back about the loan yet.”
“I will.”
“You said that yesterday. Will you get the baby in some pajamas while I finish these dishes? Honey? Honey?”
“Huurh, what? I’m sorry, I must have fallen asleep again.”
80 hours a week is too much to expect someone to work, even if the “rule” was hard and fast. I look forward to the day that my husband says goodbye to residency. Hopefully then we can rebuild our marriage, our family, and ourselves into what they once were. Hopefully, by then, I can have a conversation that isn’t interrupted by snores. Maybe, by then, we can even have dinner together. I’ll let you know in four years.