Family Life as a Resident

Mom to a toddler. First year rural family medicine resident. Married to a paramedic.

[rural-mama-doc]

It feels so surreal to be officially board certified in family medicine and to be done with residency. My brain is still so focused on my patients. There are labs and imaging still pending for some. But they aren't my patients anymore, I have passed the baton to the incoming second year residents. I've made some really special relationships with some of my patients. The best gift I received from my residency was the friendships from my co-residents. They really did become family and I am going to miss them dearly.

It's been such a wild ride to get here. 5 years of undergrad and a post-bacc year just to get into medical school. Then a global pandemic hit halfway through. Took my Step 1 exam while on fertility meds. The hospitals opened back up to students just as I was about to start my clerkship rotations having just conceived Scarlett through IUI. Took 5 months of maternity leave and extended my time in med school by a year (part time virtual courses while helping to teach in the sim lab). Took step 2 exam with only 2 days to study thanks to COVID hitting my sister who was acting as my nanny. Applied OBGYN residency, didn't match. Went through the hell that is SOAP to get into my family medicine program. Found out I was pregnant with Olivia 2 weeks into intern year. Moved clear to the other side of the state after intern year so we were 3+ hours away from family and friends. Lost a colleague to suicide while on maternity leave and then within 6 months last another colleague in a motorcycle accident and a faculty member to gun violence on Christmas Eve. Had 3 weeks of paper charting/down time due to a cyber attack on my first inpatient rotation of residency (and still squeezing in pumping time). Took step 3 exam while pumping. Went through an ice storm that knocked out our power for 5 days while on the depths of postpartum depression mixed with hella burnout. Transitioned into my chief resident/senior resident role with 2 nearly incompetent junior residents. Took my board exams while recovering from a GI bug. Bought a new house and sold our house within 2 months of each other while studying for boards, finishing up graduation requirements, and getting documentation for me new job.

I'm now off until September 21st and I am so looking forward to having the summer off to relax with my girls. But we are moving next week, so have to get through that first.

[rural-mama-doc]

Scarlett just looked at my husband and said "But dad, girls just wanna have fun all the time" while he is trying to get her to calm down for bedtime. We have created a monster lol

[rural-mama-doc]

My program director keeps making comments that he thinks the future of PCPs is direct primary care. This is the same man who scoffed at me for wanting to sign with a hospital system rather than start my own private practice. I said I would do DPC because I don't want to be on call 24/7. He goes "those are conceriege doctors, not DPC." This man has clearly never seen DPC advertised, because most of them mention "24/7 access to your doctor." And also, I'd like to help everyone, not just the ones that can afford a membership fee.

[rural-mama-doc]

My program director keeps making comments that he thinks the future of PCPs is direct primary care. This is the same man who scoffed at me for wanting to sign with a hospital system rather than start my own private practice. I said I would do DPC because I don't want to be on call 24/7. He goes "those are conceriege doctors, not DPC." This man has clearly never seen DPC advertised, because most of them mention "24/7 access to your doctor." And also, I'd like to help everyone, not just the ones that can afford a membership fee.

[rural-mama-doc]

The way Olivia says she's hungry is she comes up to me patting or rubbing her belly and goes "Mommy. Mt tummy rumble...." It is the cutest thing.

[rural-mama-doc]

Scarlett had her last day of preschool today. She had a good day and had lots of fun. Come bedtime, it finally sank in that we are moving and she isn't going to get to see these friends next year. She was crying so hard because she is never going to see her friends again and she's going to miss her teahers. She asked me why she couldn't stay at this school forever because her friends get to stay at this school forever. Then I asked her to close her eyes and she said "tears keep coming out of my eyes even when I'm not crying because I'm so sad." She then asked me to rock her and sing to her. That combination broke me.

I feel like the worst mom in the world. This move is going to be good for the family. Instead of being 3 hours from my family, we're going to be 10 minutes away. The time to my in laws drops from 4 hours to 2.5 hours. But my baby girl is hurting and I want to take the hurt away. I just let her cry while I held her. Because nothing I say is going to make it better and she doesn't need to be told that she'll make new friends and be happy at her new school right now. She deserves to grieve the loss of these friendships.

[rural-mama-doc]

Ya girl is officially done with inpatient medicine!!!

I'm about to start a month of an outpatient urology elective and then I'm done with residency June 30th!!! My contract for my next job doesn't start until Spetepmber 21st, so I get summer with the kids. I'm so excited.

[rural-mama-doc]

We got a full price cash offer just contingent on an inspection yesterday. We were on the market for less than 48 hours. This feels too good to be true.

[rural-mama-doc]

Our house is officially listed for sale! We had someone come look at it this last weekend before it was listed and they may be interested in making an offer contingent on the sale of their home.

[rural-mama-doc]

It was listed for like 3 hours and we already had 4 showings set up for the next 2 days and like 300 views on the listing. I guess our realtor wasn't kidding when she said the market usually moves fast up here.

[rural-mama-doc]

Our house is officially listed for sale! We had someone come look at it this last weekend before it was listed and they may be interested in making an offer contingent on the sale of their home.

[rural-mama-doc]

Our house is officially listed for sale! We had someone come look at it this last weekend before it was listed and they may be interested in making an offer contingent on the sale of their home.

[rural-mama-doc]

My sister in law apparently hot arrested. Trigger warning, DV and animal abuse.

She randomly started texting me directly again a few weeks ago. Apparently she got over herself finally after telling her NOT to bring her kids over because we didn't want her baby to grt HFM and she thought we were putting him at risk by going to my in-laws at all.

I get a text from her at 8:30pm on Mother's Day saying her and my BIL are getting divorced. This is not the first time. Any time they get in a big fight, she says this. I asked what happened. She sent a picture of their new puppy (she says he got it without her approval) saying it's the only thing he cares about. I said I'm sorry, that's super shitty and I take it she didn't have a good Mother's Day. No response.

My MIL calls my husband today to tell him that BIL and SIL got in a fight and she spent the night in jail. He puts that shit on speaker so we can both here. My MIL got permission from my BIL to give us a brief summary of what happened since my husband, the kids, and the dogs are going down this weekend. So this is his side of the story through my MIL.

They got into a fight, I'm assuming about the dog. There are also other stressor. She is coming up on a year postpartum (I don't actually know their third kiddos birthday. She wasn't talking to us then. I still haven't met him.) And their oldest has been kicked off of a travel soccer team twice now because of her running her mouth to the coach. She texts mt MIL asking her to take their dogs (as in keep them forever). My MIL doesn't respond. My SIL then tells MIL that they're getting divorced.

At some point during their fight, SHE calls the police on HIM. Idk if this happened before or after she scruffs the puppy and slams it's head into the floor and then chokes the puppy. She also choked my BIL and punched him in the face. My assumption as to what happened is my SIL got pissed, puppy did something she didn't like, she started attacking puppy, BIL stepped in to stop her, she attacked BIL, then called police saying he assaulted her. The oldest of my nephews confirmed my BILs account of things, so she got arrested and spent the night in jail. She is facing DV and animal cruelty charges.

I definitely don't trust her around my kids and dogs after this. Idk how my BIL is gonna handle those 3 boys by himself, I'm assuming lots of help from MIL and FIL. The boys are wrecked because they don't want their mom to go to jail. My BIL still wants to be with her, he's got some major self esteem issues and this isn't the first time she has laid hands on him. She has been cutting him off from family every time she gets mad. She definitely has some kind of undiagnosed psychiatric disorder but I bet she tries to blame it entirely on postpartum depression.

[rural-mama-doc]

We closed on our house today. My mom was supposed to be able to stop by the house to pick up the keys and garage door openers. She just got there and there are no keys or door openers besides the key that was in the lock box. Sooooo that's cool. I hope the sellers agent has them at their office or something. We weren't planning to move in immediately or anything but I'm still pissed. We are supposed to have possession at close. Where are the keys to our house?

[rural-mama-doc]

Dude. I hate the ER. There was a man with a bladder stone stuck in his urethra and the urologist was an hour away doing surgeries. So I had to give him pain meds and try to pop it out. It didn't work, so then I had to help the urologist pull it out after he got done. Then I come out to a child screaming bloody murder because he broke his arm. Give me doing pap smears and talking about high blood pressure all day over that shit.

[rural-mama-doc]

Ya girl passed her boards!!!

[rural-mama-doc]

I haven't had a GI bug in a while. This is miserable. It's almost like colonoscopy prep. Liv had it first earlier this week. I thought I got it like a day or two after she did. Mild fever and nausea with some diarrhea. Only slept like 2 hours the night before I took my boards, so assumed that's why I felt awful yesterday. Nope. Had a full blown fever. Developed severe diarrhea after that. Like shit my pants 3 times within 24 hours level diarrhea. I'm ready for this to be done. The stuff earlier in the week must've been nerves for boards, though I don't know why the mild fever.

[rural-mama-doc]

I got Scarlett this game for her birthday. She's been really into board games and asking a lot of math questions (they've been working on addition at school, not subtraction yet). It's super cute and easy to play, just have to help her a bit with the math and read the prompts on the spaces if there are special actions. I would definitely buy more products like this. It looks like they have a strategy game for 5+ and a word game for 8+.