Nine months ago the online application system opened for Surgical Critical Care, the specialty in which J decided long ago he wanted to do a fellowship after residency.
Eights months and two weeks ago, J submitted the Surgical Critical Care common application, indicating over thirty programs to receive it, most of them on either the East Coast or the Midwest in places we could reasonably consider living for a year. Six months ago, J flew out to Chicago for the first of what would be many interviews. Twenty-two in total, in fact, the last of which was one month ago. Two weeks ago, J submitted a ranked list of all those programs in hopes that the Match gods would look favorably upon the top of our list. In two days, we find out where J's education will take us after Residency.
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Have you ever opened up a journal or diary from when you were an adolescent and just cringed? You probably wrote about how the world was ending because your crush didn't smile at you one day, or how your parents were "the worst," or maybe how you were so in love with your boyfriend/girlfriend and you were certain it would never end. . .
And then you put it away and think "Thank God I've grown up!" Those written mementos, melodramatic as they may be, are valuable reminders of how things change with time, perspective, and maturity. When we write them we have no concept of how to contextualize the problems into a larger picture, into a timeline of personal development that will inevitably reshape and resize the roles of those problems in our lives. And although reading them can be painful ("OMG I can't believe I thought that!"), they are a great means of measurement for how far we've come in life. Well, apparently our capacity for melodrama doesn't always mellow with age. My doctor wasn't entirely sure what the scan meant, but she had a plan and reassured us that this would not define our future even if it was overwhelmingly terrifying in our present. I tried to remain calm as I shared all of this with J the moment my doctor left the exam room, and he responded with questions and statements of clarification. What are the numbers? What does it look like? So this is what we do next? Yes, that sounds accurate. Yes, I would agree with that plan. . .
"You're using your doctor voice," I said. "I know," he said stolidly. Then, more quietly, "I need to right now." I broke one of my rules.
Rule #5 explicitly states: "If your insurance is kind enough to cover mental health, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT! It is not because you are sick or damaged or need to "get better," but because the closest person in your life will not always be available to support you and listen to you, and a lot of the emotional work may fall on your shoulders. A good therapist can go a long way in making the residency experience easier to bear." Apparently your therapist's maternity leave is not a valid excuse to stop going to therapy, even temporarily, at a time when your world feels like it's falling apart. Many surgical residencies strive to provide a variety of experiences and opportunities to their residents, though few hospitals have the resources or personnel to wholly represent every specialty. They can make up for this in the form of away rotations at other hospitals, usually for a month-long interval at specific points throughout the training program. In J's case, he's had opportunities to rotate through a community hospital that afforded him greater independence and responsibility, a renowned transplant program, and a massive hospital devoted entirely to trauma with significantly more severe and varied cases than his own hospital's trauma team sees in any given month. The first two of these away rotations were, thankfully, in New York City, but the latter is in Baltimore. It is undoubtedly a great opportunity, but unpleasant to have to spend a month apart, each of us living alone in apartments over three hours away. Still, in the weeks leading up to the rotation, we knew we would manage. We always do.
But life has a funny way of turning things on their heads and throwing wrenches into plans. I met her for the first time on a sweltering June day. I was alone except for my backpack and three suitcases stuffed to the seams with everything I thought mattered. She waited for me with a crossed-arms, foot-tapping impatience that made me feel apologetic for any extra moment I took to get my bearings. At the curb outside the airport, she pushed me into a cab smelling suspiciously and excessively pleasant; the first of many affronts to the senses. The cab - whose air-conditioning was conveniently broken - raced and crawled and lurched and pushed its way through thick evening traffic, leaving my stomach trying desperately to hold on. She sneered.
About a month after we moved when I was still refusing to be anything but sullen and pessimistic about our new home, J forced me to listen to the hard truth I needed to hear: "You need to find a way to make this work otherwise it's going to be a very long residency." He was right, of course, and that was a turning point in my approach toward this new journey of ours.
The stairs of the Medical College seemed at once insignificant and insurmountable. We walked together, both full of insincere confidence.
“We can do this,” I said, more to myself than to him. “And I will be happy. But whatever happens, we’d better not end up living in Borough Park, Brooklyn.” I smiled at the sheer absurdity of the thought -- being not only in New York, but in a neighborhood where Yiddish was the lingua franca, where I would be an outcast. He squeezed my hand and I knew he hoped his parents and classmates wouldn’t see even that tiny indication of the trepidation we both felt. I've often thought that I should share my experiences with the world, but I've held back for fear of not having an audience. But then there are the occasional afternoons or lonely evenings spent on Google searches and blog posts, reading the experiences of others in similar situations, and they bring me hope, comfort, or sometimes a healthy dose of head-nodding, finding camaraderie and companionship in these strangers' words.
Because let's face it: being a resident's wife is really hard. And being a surgical resident's wife is hard. And being a small-town girl thrown into a big city is hard. And not having family around is hard. And living in New York is just plain hard. |
AuthorNashira is a music teacher and proud Small-Town Jew who, after surthriving six years in Brooklyn for her husband's surgical residency, is finally back in Wisconsin where she belongs! At least until the end of the two-year surgical fellowship, that is. It's a wild ride, and she's ready to tell you all about it! Archives
September 2019
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