All Hail The Chief {Except the Wife}

Okay, so I'll admit... there are a total of three perks to being married to the Chief.

• The Chief stipend (and it's most likely not as large as you would think.)
• The yearly Chiefs conference which is always held at a nice destination.

But the biggest perk is this...

• Being in charge of the call/vacation schedule.

So, imagine my excitement when I learned Doc H would be attending a conference in the gorgeous Canadian Rockies. I plotted and planned our picturesque trip. I extended our trip 10 days beyond the conference so we could sight see. It would just be the two of us, without the pager, without any presentation looming over him, no conference duties. I was thrilled. This would be Doc H's first REAL vacation in two years.

The two of us alone to rekindle the energy between us... Just the thought of it almost throws me into the type of nirvana a gal can only achieve via the multiple Os. You know what mean?

Our travel dates were marked out in permanent Sharpie on our home calendar, which is just the same as breaking out the chisel and hammer in my book. These dates were set in stone.

Doc H took appropriate action. He posted these dates off on the department calendar and the call schedule. He notified the OR scheduler, the clinic scheduler, and his assistant. He alerted his team.

Every "i" had been dotted. Every "t" had been crossed. Now, we just had to let a few months pass before our trip was upon us.

Our trip is now two weeks away. Now, instead of booking a rental car, or shopping for a new pair of vacation shoes, I find myself shooting off mental Italian salutes into the atmosphere yelling, "Take THAT, you WHITE COATS!"

Doc H's vacation has just gone ker-plunk. As of late,  Doc H's colleagues notified him of their personal vacation plans which fully overlaps our vacation dates. Doc H cannot in good conscience leave his most junior partners (newer attendings) alone without seasoned backup.

So, my husband is staying home to be the Chief, while his colleagues go off and enjoy their vacations.

No wonder they all love their Chief so much.

Me? I'm not loving "the Chief" in him so much right now.



Linking up at Weekend Reads with A Dose of Paige. You should, too!

Feel Sorry For Interns

There are some days I just feel sorry for interns. Basically, they are book smart doctors with no real world experience. Yet, they willing put themselves at risk for a clobbering at any given moment.

Case in point...

Sunday morning, while Doc H is in the shower, his cell phone rings and eventually quiets going unanswered. However, that noise is shortly followed by the piercing beep of his pager. He jumps out of the bathroom.

He returns the page using his cell phone (God forbid anyone from the hospital captures our home number) with his usual greeting, "This is Doc H. Someone paged me?"

I can barely make out a young woman's voice muted by the cell phone case. She quickly reports of what she knows of the patient and the situation at hand. She sounded confident, competent.

Then Doc H began his line of questioning to gather information needed for further evaluation. She unraveled, stopping the conversation to go ask others for answers, all while Doc H stood half dressed in our bedroom.

From my end, the calm, but rapid fire conversation went something like this..

What size stent? No, that's the needle size. What's the stent size?
What the patient's INR? We need to know that. Was ultrasound guidance used? You don't know that either? Who's the attending? Okay, we'll have to put this case under review. I'll be by to see the patient.

And I cringed. During the conversation, I was cheering that young lady on, c'mon you can do it! Because if it were me, my voice may have cracked a time or two during the phone conversation. My nerves may have worn me down.

But all I can make out from the other end, is a weak little, "Ok, thank you."

When Doc H hung up, I asked, "Was that a resident?"

"No, an intern! They shouldn't have an intern calling. They shouldn't be put in that position!"

I was so happy to hear him say that.

I sincerely hope that intern is not crying in the ladies room as I type this. Because, I'm pretty sure I would be.

Let's all take a moment and feel sorry for the interns, shall we?



Linked up with A Dose of Paige's Weekend Reads

Crossing the Tracks

I think I've crossed the tracks.

You see, growing up, I always felt like that girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Perhaps, I would've felt differently had I gone to public school, but I didn't. My parents scraped together every penny, sometimes worked two jobs, and sacrificed to send their kids to private schools.

In high school, I was the tormented girl who felt she didn't belong with the rich kids. You know, the ones who drove to school in their new BMWs on their 16th birthday, vacationed in Italy over Spring break, and wore designer duds to school. Looking back, now I'm ashamed to admit these feelings of insecurity, but what can I say? I was a teenaged girl who desperately wanted to keep up with the crowd. How stupid.

Up until this point, I've felt Doc H and I (yes, I'll include myself here since I was working until 2 years ago) have provided for our family well. Our kids have everything they want. If we refused to buy it for them, they would save up and buy it for themselves. Our kids are good with money. We're good with money.

Coming from humble, working class families, we are sensible with our money. I think Doc H would admit, I am the more frugal. While I want to negotiate everything down to the deal of the century, Doc H takes a more kumbaya approach, wanting our dealings to be a win-win affair for all involved.  He'll slice and dice humans, but forget about slicing prices. He is a salesperson's dream. Yet, we save money, we budget money, we invest money, and Doc H works harder than any person I've ever met.

And now, thanks to that little medical device Doc H invented, here we are. And it hit me just like that. Peering over Doc H's shoulder, I watched as he sketched a design idea. I mumbled a few ideas... what I liked and what I absolutely did not like. At the flip of a pencil, he began erasing to incorporate some of my suggestions. And that's when this new, unfamiliar sensation hit me, only to send me flying over the tracks into what felt like an out of body experience.

There we were designing a custom driveway gate for our second home, and I stood there and for the first time in my life, I felt privileged.

I cannot deny it any further. I am no longer that girl, the girl whom I'm used to being, the girl I love,  and it scares me. I have crossed the tracks and I'm falling into new territory.

Medical Monday Giveaway Winner!

A huge congratulations to Mary at This is How My Garden Grows for winning our Medical Monday Giveaway! Your $100 Amazon gift card will be arriving via email soon!

Jane and I are looking forward to sharing another year of fellowship and friendship with you all on the grid!

We can't thank you all enough for your participation this year! Mark your calendar and we'll see you Monday, Sept 2. It's a holiday, but if the hospitals are open for business, so are we!

White Coat Warning, Please!

Okay, my friends, I can't take it anymore, so I present to you my very first DIY and printable-- White Coat Warning.

Over the weekend, while primly dressed in my pumps and pearls, I entertained myself by gaily laundering my family's soiled clothing. Let's go with that visual. The truth {that it was incredibly late in the day, I had yet to bathe, was wearing the previous day's makeup and an outfit with a cumulative age of 57 years old} is not very appealing imagery.

A woman screaming in the laundry room equates to an unexpected finding. Normally, the finding belongs to the insect or reptile family. You know... a spider, army of ants, a lizard, or perhaps even a wayward snake.

Me? I screamed at this...

White Coat Terror!

Unexpected, white coat terror! You see, to me, a self proclaimed germophobe, white coats are carriers of all sorts of germy things-- microscopic things you don't want crawling around your house. For some reason, after ten years of sending his white coats to the hospital contracted cleaners, Doc H has decided he would rather send his white coats to our personal dry cleaners. You remember her, right? Yeah-- she's the one that felt me up.

Terrorized that I had accidentally and unknowingly fondled the bundle of germs while color sorting, I could do nothing but belt out a scream. Per the usual, no one but the dog was home to rush to my aid. 

But, I rushed to the aid of this..

and just in case that wasn't enough to rid my hands of what I was sure to be the plague, I slathered myself up to my armpits with this...

So, I decided if Doc H wanted me to schlep his white coats to the cleaners, we needed a system which would allow me sufficient time to properly prepare for the job ahead. I'm talking rubber gloves, tongs, and plastic garbage bags.

Here's my system...

You can have it to...

Get your White Coat Warning printable and start your own warning system today!

Married Sex

In transit from the bed to the bathroom, I heard myself saying, "Your thumb was in my ear the whole time!"

To which he replied, "All you had to do was say, 'Could you take your thumb out of my ear, please?'"

Huh. 

Yeah. I guess that might have worked.

My Husband Loves Me

My husband loves me.

How can I tell?

In an effort to help out around the house, he makes the bed before he heads off to work early in the morning.

And I tell you, I really appreciate it...

even if I am still trying to sleep in it.

Medical Monday {Vol. 2, Aug Edition} Anniversary GIVEAWAY

 Today, my fabulous co-host, Jane at From a Doctor's Wife, and I are celebrating ONE YEAR of Medical Mondays! I cannot express how much this little community we've built means to me. It brings great joy to me to see all the friendships which blossomed from this link up as I hop from blog to blog. 

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to give big props to Jane! When I shared this idea with her and asked if she would be interested in co-hosting with me, she jumped right in. Without her help and hard work, I'm not sure I could've kept this party going as smoothly as it has. Despite her hectic schedule, somehow she manages to keep this party on schedule! She is the best co-host a gal could ever hope for!

And yet, where would Medical Mondays be without YOU?? Our friends, our participants, our bloggers-- you all bring us the warm fuzzies each and every time you link up with us.  We love seeing you on the grid. We love reading what you've decided to share with us. Sometimes it's a DIY, sometimes it's a rant about a bad day/patient/attending, sometimes it's a reminder to be healthy, sometimes it's a lesson learned, sometimes it's family photos, and sometimes it is all about the pager. It's always something different and fun to read about. 

So, this month, to celebrate Medical Monday's one year anniversary, we celebrate our Medical Monday participants by having a bit of fun in the form of a $100 Amazon Gift Card GIVEAWAY!

Entries are open only to MM participants, both past and present. 

If you are new to party, WELCOME! Please be sure to read below to make sure you qualify for the link up. Your affiliation to the medical world must be easy to identify on your blog in either your "about me" section, profile, or blog name. 

Are you confused if you qualify for the party?

If you have a pager interrupting your life... you DEFINITELY qualify!
Do you work in healthcare?

Doctor? Nurse? EMT? Chiropractor? Vet? Dentist? Therapist?

MA? NA? PA? DA?

Are you the spouse or SO of a healthcare worker/student?

Are you a nursing student? Medical student?

Intern? Resident? Fellow?

You get the picture, right? Come on, now... don't be shy! Let's keep growing and meeting new bloggers, so we can build a community of support and friendship, learn from one another, and share our stories.

LINK UP YOUR POST!

Here are the rules:

1. Follow your co-hosts via Bloglovin, GFC (if you are Blogger), FB, email or Twitter.
2. Link up you medical/med life blog. If your blog name does not clearly state how you fit in to the med/med life world, please write a little intro or link up a specific post which clearly demonstrates your connection.
3. Visit at least 3 other link ups, comment, introduce yourself, and tell the your stopping by or following from MM!
4. Help spread the word by using our button on your post or sidebar, tweet about Medical Monday, or spread the word on Facebook! The more the merrier for all of us.

Complete step one by following your co-hosts:

• Emma at Your Doctor's Wife
• Jane at From A Doctor's Wife

Want to be awesome?
Post our button on you post or sidebar and help spread the word:

<a href="http://www.yourdoctorswife.com/p/medical-mondays.html" target="blank"> <img src="http://i1168.photobucket.com/albums/r494/fromadoctorswife/MedicalMonday-001edit125x125.jpg"/> </a>

Want to co-host next month? Shoot Emma an email at yourdoctorswife@gmail.com and be sure to write "Medical Monday Co-host Request" in the subject field.

Now, link up below and have fun! The link up is open through Friday, so be sure to come back during the week to check some great reads!

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Come Celebrate with Us as Medical Mondays Turns One!

This coming Monday will mark a grand milestone! 

Jane at From a Doctor's Wife and I will be celebrating our monthly link up's first anniversary and we want to celebrate with you!

Be sure to linkup with us and visit others in the MM community to make friends, find support, and share stories. You won't want to miss our special celebration!

See you on Medical Monday!

I Couldn't Make This Up {Mama's Getting Married}

I would like to file this all under fiction. But, people, I assure you I'm not clever enough to make this shit up. I really would like to be able to wrap my brain around this...

Bio-mom is getting married. Good for her... I hope she's happy. In all honesty, I really couldn't care less, but I will admit, it brings me a bit of relief. My sincere hope is that it is a good marriage which will free the kids from worring about their mother being "alone" or without any financial support.

Recently, we learned bio-mom and her fiance are planning a destination wedding. Sounds lovely. I'm sure it will be nice and the kids will enjoy traveling with their mother. New memories will be made and, hopefully, they will be good memories which can erase the terror of mad jellyfish stings and arguing adults from the last trip they took with their mother and her ex-fiance. Yes, this should be a good trip for the kids.

Then Doc H and I learn each of the kids (now, remember, the girls are piss-pot, poor college students and LB is finishing up middle school) are expected to make a financial "donation" towards the wedding. 

EXCUSE ME?

The "donation" basically equates to their own airfare. And, I'm not talking $99 round trip airfare. I'm talking over land and ocean airfare.

If you want your kids to attend your wedding, yet can't afford to foot the bill, why not have a less expensive, local wedding at one of the many picturesque locales we are blessed with nearby? 

While the girls do have weekend jobs to have a little slush fund, what is LB to do? Fork over all his birthday and Christmas money? None of these cover the expected "donation" amount. Then what?

We'll be asked to cover the "donation" for them.

Yes, I'm waiting. Sometime in 2014, I fully expect the kids to ask Doc H to help them cover their "donation" for his ex-wife's wedding. Mark my words, people. Mark my words.

Like I said.... I can't make this shit up.