Trying to be supportive of resident hubby

[Vanquisher]

Oh gosh, I really hate those short days that turn into early evenings that turn into evenings that turn into late nights.

Bah! Me too! I RARELY resort to paging SO at work, but when it's 9:30 and I haven't heard from him yet, I go for it. Done it twice in 2 years. The image of him lying in the gutter with his bike in pieces around him is not something I like to sit with very long. Fortunately, it's always been the case of a heavy admission night. But one's mind does wander. If he's on call, I know I won't hear from him until I'm at work the next day and he's falling into bed. Hate. Late. Nights.

I have to talk to my husband every day! I have been known to page him quite a bit. I have actually calmed down A LOT on the pages. Dh has gotten remarks about it.

Can't beleive I am admitting this.

Yes, I am a needy, co-dependent, whiny little troll!

I expect my husband to take 1-2 minutes out of his day to talk to me. Is that really so bad? Sometimes I feel like the phone and pager is the only way we can connect.

I hate late nights. I hate call. I just want normalcy, and I am not ready to give up on that dream. That is going to be a huge blow to me when residency is over. "What the hell do you mean coming home at 8?" You mean some dying drunk is more important than eating spaghetti with me and the kids? Explain this to me again.

For me, what works is this: As long as I know that my husband is doing everything he can to get home and connect with me and the kids within the constraints of residency, that's all I can ask for, for now. So, if it is a call to let me know he is going into the O.R., how are the kids, etc. that lasts 2 minutes - that's better than nothing. It's what keeps me going.

[alison]

Heidi: If you consider yourself wanting 2-minute calls needy, then I don't know what I am... I expect at least one call during a regular day while dh is at work. And a call when he's in the car on his way home.

On overnight calls, I expect 2 calls (one during the day, one at night) and then a call when he's on his way home the next day. I don't page him unless I need to tell him something. Dh used to be really bad about calling me (in other words: he never called home) until we had the "AT LEAST check in" explosive argument.

Take that for needy troll, Heidi!

[houseelf]

Add me to the sisterhood of trolls.

We have an agreement that DH tries to call me at least once every day during the day and again before 6 so that I know whether to hold dinner. If he is on call he tries to call me before bedtime too. Once in a great blue moon he is unable to manage this. Further, now that he is becoming more senior in the program, a nurse will often return his pages when he is scrubbed in. This is a much better than having unreturned pages for hours.

Kelly

[Vanquisher]

Alison, yeah, I expect about that much too. In fact, we get our best conversations in when he is on the way home. Also, when he was on his VA rotation, he called me every morning on the way to the VA after conferences, so we got to talk for about 15 minutes. I found that held me over longer for not being able to talk to him.

I just page more often -

Sometimes I just need to bounce something off of him, and I need him to be "present" in our lives some how. So, I text page him, and he calls me when he gets a chance. I find though, that if I don't page, I don't get called back. He is enabling me. If he would preemptively call, there would be a lot less paging going on.

[Vanquisher]

Further, now that he is becoming more senior in the program, a nurse will often return his pages when he is scrubbed in. This is a much better than having unreturned pages for hours.

Kelly

Yikes, I hate that when a nurse calls me back. I'm always like, "ummm, this is just his wife, and could you have him call me when the case is done." It's not like I want to tell him/her that I would like to know if he is going to be home for dinner. I hate unreturned pages for hours though too. I feel like I can't win. That's why I like it when he calls me before he goes into the O.R. That way I know what is going on. He also tells me that the case should take "about an hour." The last time a case actually took about an hour, I don't know. It's always something that was a little more time than they anticipated. Like 4 or 5 hours more time. Does my dh really just not understand how long it takes to do operations, or do all your spouses way underestimate time?

[DCJenn]

I never, ever page. Well, ok, I have probably paged like 5 times over the past three years. He'll call if he can and if he can't I figure why delay him any further. Wednesdays are the worst because those are clinic days and rather than only two patients in the afternoon like everyone else, he sees four which leaves him doing his clinic notes until 8 or so pm.

Besides, my husband is horrible on the phone. Thank God for meeting on the internet so that I didn't actually have to talk to him until I had alreaady decided that I liked him. He's awful. He's rude to everyone because he's so stuck in his head that it's embarrasing. I actually will run down two flights of stairs flailing my bath towel around my nekkid arse to prevent him from answering the phone...

But, I digress. (as always)

Since I was once a pager-on-call-24/7 person I have such a hatred for them that I can't do it unless it's a super serious you must call me back blood and guts are involved kind of call.

He will call if he's going to be super late sometimes and if I need something I leave a message on his cell phone which he checks on the Metro ride home.

Jenn

[alison]

It's definitely different if you've got kids. I don't think you're needy! My dad was around while I was growing up, because he had his architectural studio very closeby and would come home for lunch sometimes. So it makes a big difference if you're a family!

Dh constantly overestimates time. Even at home. The other day he thought we could go to the post office and Costco within an hour! What?!?!

[alison]

Jenn, I didn't see your post until after mine went up. The way you handle this is probably the healthiest way--and what I'm aiming for...
Dh and I were long distance for most of our relationship.(courtship--does anyone say that anymore?!). I was so independent when he was in Germany and there were times when we didn't talk for a few days, but now that he's here I find myself so attached.

The funny thing is that I once dated a resident when I was in college, and I couldn't deal with his hours, so we broke up. I didn't think I would find myself in the same situation years later! But of course I'm muuuuuuch more mature now, heheh. (--but I digress, to steal the words from Jenn!).

Dh is on call tonight and I'm holding up ok. But at least I know he's not coming home tonight. It's almost easier than waiting up for someone.

I agree. I would always wait up for DH because he was suppose to be home by 10. Then 10 turned into 11, then midnight and every time I would figure that I might as well stay up, since I've stayed up so long already (and I wanted the 10 minutes of conversation before he fell asleep). Then we both would be tired the next day, and that really just made everything worse. When he is on call, I just do what I want. I've actually asked him to please just stay at the hospital if he wasn't going to be finished working until so late.

[SuzySunshine]

It sounds like DH and I's paging/calls fall somewhere in the middle. First it depends which attending he is working with. If he's working with an attending that I know regularly operates until 6-7pm I won't page him until 7pm to find out if and when he's coming home so I can make dinner. For "easy" rotations like the one he is on now, I'll page him when I'm leaving work at 5 to see what his timeline is. If he's on night call I don't even bother, if he hasn't called by 9pm to check in then I'll page him. If he doesn't call back by 10 I go to bed because I know if he wasn't busy he'd be calling me back. If he's working late, i.e. he's going to get home after I go to bed, he is required to give me an estimated time so that if I wake up and he's not home I can page him b/c he should have been, that whole hoping he's not dead thing being a problem.

I too hate it when nurses return his pages though I've developed a standard "This is his wife please have him call me when he's done" response. There is no reason I should feel guilty for that and most of the nurses my DH works with on a regular basis are very accomodating. You can also tell by their response if the attending is in the room, they're very good about not letting the attending know the spouse is paging. I had ONE bad run in with a nurse and a page and that was all it took for to have my standard response.

I'll never be one of those people that never pages him, that just won't happen.

[Flynn]

This is interesting....

I think I paged DH a LOT more when we didn't have kids. I'm not sure why???

If I don't hear from DH by 4 p.m. or before, he's on his own for dinner. It may work out that he eats with us or has a reheated meal, maybe not. That just works for us. Waiting for him is not practical since he's rarely home before 8 p.m. anyway.

I do page DH occasionally and I like it when a nurse returns my call so I can ask the estimated "close time." They are very good about saying he'll be "elbows deep" for a couple more hours. I find that very helpful. I prefer to KNOW if he's coming or not. I'm not good with "maybe I'll get out of there on time."

I think DH should check in with me once a day. I know the conversation will be less than 5 minutes but I like it, it helps me plan the rest of the day and so most of the time he makes an effort.

[SueC]

We're not in residency yet. But so far I don't think he's ever missed calling me at least once during the day, plus again before my bedtime if he's on overnight call. Hopefully this trend can continue. I definitely intend to learn to use the alphanumeric pager! Is the learning curve steep?

The whole hoping he's not dead thing is going to be a very big issue since he has a 12 mile bike ride each way through a few unsavory neighborhoods!

Aww, we used to do that! Dh would call me to tell me goodnight, and then call me the next morning to tell me good morning. I can't remember when that stopped, somewhere around 2nd or 3rd year of residency or so??? Now I only page him if I really need him, and he doesn't have to call me back unless I put 911 after our phone #. Unless he calls me for some random reason, we generally don't talk during the day at all.

[Vishenka69]

We don't usually speak during the day but I do email whenever I have a question or something and he'll check if he has time. I tried calling to leave a msg on his cell at first but he never turns it off and can't really talk in OR, so I had to stop doing that. I think I paged him 2-3 times in the past 3 years and he never answered those.

Although we don't physically talk during the day, he always calls when he's leaving the hospital (and I learned to never expect him at a certain hour unless he's coming from a call) and at least once during his call. I've learned not to plan anything during the week, esp during the more uncertain rotations. I also think it's much easier without kids.

[Cumberland]

We usually talk at least once during the day, but often more. I can text page him a msg and I do that quite often.

I HATE it when a nurse calls me back. At least two or three times I have paged him when I am crying about something (I am a very very frequent crier) and the nurse calls me back. I usually try to choke it down but they can tell the cracking voice and get him on the phone before I can get out of it. He has gotten on the phone holding it with a sterile towel to talk to me and then I feel like a big idiot bc the whole OR knows his wife is hysterical again.

[mommax3]

I sometimes talk to DH once during the day, sometimes not. His call is always home call, so if he isn't home by 6 or so on a call night, I will page him to see what is going on. I am usually only semi-coherent when he leaves in the morning, so a lot of times I end up paging him to ask him something that I could have asked him that morning if I had been awake enough. I am still learning his schedule (and it keeps changing!) but I am starting to figure out that at the end of the hour, I may get lucky and he will call back right away because he is likely to be between patients. But sometimes he is in surgery (that is the part that keeps changing) and he can't return the page.

During residency, he would try to call once each day, around my bedtime if nothing else. I would page IF it was something that wouldn't wait, depending on his rotation, or if I was having a hard day, or just needed to hear his voice. He always calls back if he can, but especially during residency, sometimes he was scrubbed in or swamped in clinic, and he just couldn't call back.

I always feel apologetic if a nurse or someone else returns the page, because most often I am not paging about anything that important. But I guess it is good to know that if it was an emergency, I could at least have someone relay a message to him!