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. On the Thursday shortly before J was set to move to Baltimore for the month, we got some bad news. The kind of life-altering, momentarily earth-shattering news that nobody ever hopes to receive, something for which we could not possibly have truly prepared ourselves despite knowing the statistics that said we should.
(I'll add this disclaimer now: everyone is going to be okay. Nobody is ill or at risk for anything problematic in the long-term. Our lives will, with time, return to normalcy and all will be well. I'm not prepared to publicly share the details, but the worst of the physical symptoms are behind us and the primary challenge at this point is purely emotional.) Three days later, J drove away headed for Baltimore. We wouldn't see each other for two weeks. Two weeks where I had to somehow deal with this thing without the support of my husband next to me. Two weeks where he had to work alongside strangers with whom he couldn't share personal details. Two weeks where I didn't know what emotions might be lurking around the corner - happy one moment, sobbing the next - and he was forced to be stoic, professional, a doctor and nothing more for 12 or 24 hours a day. In life's great unfairness, we were bereft of the time we so desperately needed to process this together, and no number of phone calls with either him or my therapist could possibly compensate for that. At one point I shared the news with my school principal since I wasn't sure how the situation might affect my teaching. She was compassionate and understanding, then asked "Do you have any family nearby?" I thought for a moment. My sister-in-law is a couple hours away by train, but that's it. Most of the family I would call on in a crisis were a flight away. "No," I said. "And my husband isn't here either." The loneliness struck me anew, as if I hadn't quite realized it before. Yet in the face of this momentary tragedy, there has been an outpouring of love. My mom, in true mom fashion, flew out to spend five days with me and made sure I wasn't alone during the worst of it. My closest friend in New York stayed overnight with me shortly after J left. My best childhood friend flew from Wisconsin to be with me for a couple days, took me to the zoo, and made sure that of all the things I felt, loneliness didn't have to be one of them. So there are bright sides to all of this. Like stars in a black sky, these demonstrations of love distract from the darkness and the shadows, never fully illuminating the ground but refocusing my attention away from all the negative space, forming pictures and comforting stories that help alleviate the fear of so many unknowns. But even if my family and friends are the stars in my sky, J is the one who keeps my feet firmly on the ground. I am no astronaut. His is the hand I seek in the darkness, the hand that holds tight until the sun rises and the stars recede. And his hand is 170 miles away. In our minds we know: this, too, shall pass. We know that this experience will make us stronger and more resilient, like every other challenge in residency. We will be closer and more compassionate, connected by this experience and a little better prepared for whatever life intends to throw at us next. We know, without a doubt, that we will be okay. Yet the things we know and the things we feel can be disconnected, our minds and hearts operating on two entirely different planes of existence. Future certainties can't change current realities, and so we are stuck dealing with all of this over phone calls and text messages, where kiss face emojis and gifs of cuddling puppies are poor proxies for the real thing. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Residency is hard. Being a surgeon is hard. Call schedules and surgical cases don't worry themselves with the life you live outside hospital walls. Training is as much about learning how to remove gall bladders and place lines as it is about learning how to compartmentalize emotions. And being a resident's spouse is hard. When you're married to a resident, the training is for you, too. You learn how to experience large swaths of life independently; you develop coping mechanisms and emotional management skills, honing your ability to stay grounded without a hand to hold. We learn to survive, and when things get hard we hope our stars are bright, numerous, and not too far away.
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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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