Medicine Rotation

Hi everyone:



Bob is going to start his Medicine Rotation on Friday, Sept. 1st and I'm sooo nervous about it. The other residents' spouses have warned me how hard it will be. They said I'll hardly ever see Bob. Call schedule is awful during this rotation. I keep thinking, can I do this? Can I take care of the family without Bob to talk to even on occasion. How do you get though rotations like this? I believe he'll be on-call every 4th night. Everything has been smooth so far, but coming is his more intense rotations... Help... Advice... Positive comments only... heehee {kidding}



Christy

Christy,



About a month after Alex was born, Thomas started an ICU rotation, which was 1:3 and quite stressful...so I know what you are going through. I would say that if you have some friends with kids that you could invite over some evenings for a pizza/movie night or something that that would break up the monotony of his call schedule! He will be tired and probably quite "useless"....but after the first two weeks it is all downhill...seems to go by faster.



Just try and make time for yourself....when Thomas is really busy I will have our 12 year old neighbor over to "babysit". She plays with the kids in their room while I do dishes, take a shower, etc...(don't leave the house, of course) and then I pay her a little....I get time to shower and get things done and she feels great about herself.



Keep us all posted!



Kristen

I'm sure it will be difficult but you can do it ~ stay focused on your two little ones. Remember to smile ~ September only has 30 days ~ Devera

christy we just finished ours and I will tell you that I think that Devera is right--just two weeks--after that they see the light at the end of the tunnel. Call schedule for us is every 4th night regardless of the rotation so we are always dealing with that.



I may be a big ol' nerd but I leave little notes on the mirror in the bathroom or post it notes on the front door--the outside of the door with a countdown on it. You know sappy stuff like "I am so proud of you only 15 days to go" I wouldn't start the notes until day 15 though--"Congrats on 29 days to go could be a real bummer"



I also went to Ben and Jerry's and bought a $40.00 box of icecream--bought the whole damn box that they had that came from the factory--he loves their ice cream and he thought it was funny. You know in these very tense times the last thing you want to be out of is ice-cream. By the way it was about 6 pounds of ice-cream and he had it finished by the end of the month (he is 6'5" and 250#'s after all). Although sometimes when he would get home late and I was already in bed I had to make sure he didn't fall asleep with the box of ice-cream in his lap--he did that a couple of times and thank god I woke up and caught it. I finally convinced him to use a bowl.



Hang in there--they sleep alot--but the good thing is they never get out because they are so tired so the only laundry you really have to worry about is scrubs and whatever he sleeps in--we saved alot of money while on the medicine rotation. Don't laugh--you got to find the silver lining somewhere.

Yes, it's true. I'm not used to Bob being on-call every 4th night. The last 2 months he's been on-call maybe every 5th or 6th night. It was great. And his rotations were not too bad...One month, Cardiology, the next, Outpatient Surgery. Now, who knows when I'll see him. I admire Surgery Residents and such, for the schedule is more difficult. Bob now wakes up at 5:00am and starts at 5:45am and has gotten home at 7:15pm. Today (Saturday) he's on-call. Again he started at 5:45am and is not expected to get home until 1:00 or 2:00pm tomorrow (Sunday). And then he'll sleep... ZZZZ... And we'll have to be as quiet as we can for Daddy!



We are blessed that he has Labor Day off though... We're going to see the family and show off Our Miracle Baby, Jonah Michael. I'm looking forward to spending some time with family and eating all those home-grown garden veggies. Yummm! Well, I just had to let you I am going to get through this month. It's never as hard as it seems... We'll be okay.



Thanks for your comments!



Smiles,

Christy

How's your month going Christy? It's on the down hill side!