Finding the Balance--2

**Balancing toddlerhood and effortless cool.**

*Choose the right partner. I say this partially tongue-in-cheek, but if you know you are going into medicine, be honest about what that might mean with your future spouse. I had a friend in college whose boyfriend was a little worried about what the medical training road looked like. At the time, I thought it was sort of funny how he did a lot of research, and interviewed people who’d been down the road to decide if he was up for it. I mean, when you’re 21, that doesn’t sound very romantic. Love is love, right? Looking back, I realize how smart he was. He found out what the road would entail for both of them, and decided he could commit to it. They got married and have navigated the ensuing road as a team. Also, if you are both pursuing time-intensive careers, communicate honestly about how you plan to merge those paths, or who is going to compromise, and when. Better some upfront discussions and research than down the road bitterness.

*Take care of your spouse: We've established that the partner sacrifices a lot in the pursuit of the medical dream. But it's important not to become so myopic in that intensity, that you forget there are lots of little ways you can pamper your spouse. A love note under the pillow, a quick phone call, a surprise donut pick-up on your way home--things don't need to take a long time to have an impact. Let your spouse know that they aren't unappreciated or forgotten in the long hours and sleep deprivation. Medicine can make you tired, but it doesn't have to make you a narcissist. :)


**You've gotta love a partner who can find the right anniversary card. Rockstar says those boots are the pre-cursor to Uggs. And I'm totally buying him some. Happy Anniversary to the man who has carried me through many a difficult thing!**


Bonus Round: Here's what I love about the people I work with. After a month of my co-workers analyzing the utter insanity of a certain reality TV show, I walked in one morning to find the following on my bulletin board(both relating to said reality show's finale that aired this week).





It definitely had me smiling as I walked into the first room of the day.

**Thanks to those who left comments on my last post--they gave me food for thought as I write these posts!**

The Balancing Act

**I brake for Saturday morning donut runs.**

You can get sick of anything after eating it enough. And as much as I loved the veggie burgers sold at the hospital I trained at, eating them every 4th night pretty well destroyed their appeal. Only one thing made them bearable: the company I kept while eating them. Rockstar came to the hospital every 4th night for my entire intern year. Whether I had a 10 or a 30 minute break, those stolen moments scarfing down a tired sandwich, kept me going.

I’ve never taken my husband’s support of my career for granted. In fact, it still strikes me as this incredible thing: that he bought so fully into a dream that wasn’t his own.

When I meet young couples, one of whom is starting down the medical training road, it’s usually the partner who I feel sorry for. Because I know how this road demands everything a family has to give, and that’s harder for the person who didn’t choose it. I’ve seen relationships fall apart when the spouse wasn’t ‘all in’ and felt like it was all too much.

Last week I wrote the post below on Interruption. I talked about how the weight and joy of the white coat is that when it’s on, it’s really not about me.


**Spring is here-happy, happy day.**

Reader, Aurora, who is starting out her journey in medicine, made the following comment:

“The thing I struggle with is this: How do I be okay with taking that time away from my son and husband and (essentially) acknowledge, "It's not about me... OR you." It's so hard sacrificing family time for patients on my child's behalf. I see so many children of physicians resent the time their dad missed a baseball game to repair an aortic aneurism or counsel a patient. Where do you draw the line and how do you reconcile that boundary, emotionally?”

These are great and important questions to consider.

The tricky thing about medicine is that for better or worse, it does require a relinquishing of self that not many other professional training roads do. It’s not that other training roads aren’t as or more rigorous than medicine, but medicine is one of the most iconic service professions. There are expectations that go along with that, and they live alongside the reality that lives are always hanging in the balance.

So, what is the trick to balancing family and medicine? I’ve seen it done a lot of different ways. Over the next week or so, I’ll be stopping in to share what I’ve learned along the way. I'll start with medical school and work my way up to attending-hood (what, you didn't know that was a word?)

Here’s one before I hit the sack:

*During those first two years of medical school, be physically present as much as you can. With so much lecture material available in notesets or in textbooks, many students in my med school class skipped some lectures in lieu of reading the material on their own. Depending on what kind of learner you are, this can be an effective use of time, and free up more time with your family. The last two years of med school don’t allow a lot of flexibility in terms of location and schedule, so use that flexibility while you have it. Of course the ideal is to be home physically and mentally. But your physical presence still matters, even when your mind is on pharmacology. Some people can’t study well at home, and I get that. Sometimes my friends and I would study at Barnes and Nobles on Friday nights. We knew it wasn’t as good as library time, but we were getting through some material and also preserving our sanity by feeling like we weren’t locked away at school all the time on weekends. Especially if you have kids, think of studying at home in the same way. Not perfect, but yielding important benefits.



**Shoot for the stars, baby. And when you fall short, that's okay too.**

Interruption

**Target is dangerous. I saw a heart shaped miniature pie-press,and wham-o! How could I not have a Valentine's tea party for Tiny and a couple of her friends?**

Among the many things that can interrupt the mojo of an afternoon of patient care, are fire alarms.

Yep, fire alarms.

Take this week, for example. My patient was all set up for her IUD placement, and my nurse and I were at the ready. I sat down to begin, when I heard a strange buzzing.

"What's that sound?" I asked my nurse.

"I'm not sure--should I check?"

"Yes, just in case it's a fire alarm."



**I think Rockstar's alarm bells go off everytime I walk by the dollar bins. Because suddenly I'm in a haze of, 'it's pink and miniature and ONLY A DOLLAR!' Seriously, though, thanks for the cute straws and party bags, Target.**


Well, whaddya know, it was! My patient was gracious about her sudden, albeit temporary, reprieve from the scheduled procedure. My nurse and I waited outside for her to get dressed. Several people passed us while we waited, and advised us to get a move on. We advised them that it seemed in poor taste to leave without our customer.

We walked out into the (mercifully mild) weather, and observed an enormous group of people--staff, doctors, nurses, patient's--standing together in the parking lot. Commenting on the cold, checking smart phones, wondering if this was 'real'.

I wondered how I was going to come back from what ultimately ended up being an almost 40 minute evacuation (!!!).

Miraculously, things went incredibly smooth once we got back into our office. Patients were understanding, visits were fairly straightforward, and a normal departure time looked not at all unlikely.

My last patient was a nice woman who I've been taking care of for a while. In the course of our conversation, she mentioned some chest pain that she'd had recently. She seemed almost embarrassed to bring it up. "I know I shouldn't even say that word in a doctor's office," she said.


**Say the word 'jewlerybox' to four little girls, and you've suddenly got their undivided attention! Again, thank you to the dollar bins.**


After discussing it, I knew we needed to do an EKG. Since we were down in a satellite office that afternoon, it would take the nurse some additional time to get the machine brought over and set-up. I mentioned to the patient that I wanted to proceed with doing the EKG and she said, 'But you guys have families that you need to get home to! Are you sure?'

I laughed it off and said, "I promise you that I don't base my clinical decision making on what time I want to leave the office.

I left the room and waited for the EKG to be done, feeling grateful for my nurse. She didn't even bat an eye at the delay.

Here's the thing: I'm not going to lie and tell you that there was no passing disappointment when I realized that my family would be waiting an extra half hour for my arrival home.

But the weight and joy of this white coat is that when it's on, it's just really not about me.

And that is the thing that ultimately keeps me going. Because when it's the right cause, giving more of yourself than you sometimes want to give means pushing through to something better. It means fighting fatigue and being flexible to land in that place of satisfied exhaustion that fills you up and lets you know that maybe your efforts are adding up to something bigger after all.


**My girl loves nothing better than to take pieces of this, and bits of that, and turn it into something bigger. In fact, I think she could do it all day long.**

Experiments in Dining

**Exuberance personified. Him, not me. Both?**

I have a theory about toddlers.

They are most comfortable with a certain level of ambient noise. And if their present environment doesn't include it? Well then they will happily fill in the negative space.

Here's my evidence (and you'll forgive its entirely anectodal nature!)

Last week my brother was in town for an interview. We decided to head to a fancy french bakery downtown for lunch. My sister's kids were with a sitter for the morning and I only had Drummer in tow.

Due to a minor miscommunication, I thought lunch was a quick stop into the main floor to get a chocolate croissant. My sibs envisioned a sit-down lunch at the upstairs restaurant part we'd never visited before. I agreed to give the sit-down lunch a go and hoped that Drummer would cooperate. After all, he had been a perfect saint at a casual burrito place the night before!

We walked up the stairs and into complete silence. I glanced around the tea room, no bigger than my living room, and noted that some people's mouths did seem to be moving. Just, nothing was coming out. So quiet! There must be some lip-reading etiquette pertaining to french tea rooms that I missed along the way.

The waitress seated us (why didn't I get a picture of that ridiculously fancy high chair?!) in that coolly polite way that implies they hope your meal will be a short one.

No sooner were we seated than Drummer smiled at me and shouted, "Truck!"

"Shhhh!" I whispered back. "Yes, that's a truck outside the window."

"Truck!!" He then glanced at another diner's meal. "Toast!"

"Shhhh! Yes, that's toast. I'll get you something to eat soon." And so it went. Toast! Shhhh! Truck! Shhh! Catch! Shhh!

After a minute had gone by, and my muscles were feeling the burn of fellow diners' stares**, I begged the waitress for some bread. Anything to stuff his mouth with, I thought.

What did she bring me? The hardest, crustiest, whole wheat roll I'd ever seen. Drummer tried unsuccesfully to bite into it and handed it back. He asked me for peanut butter. I asked the waitress. She didn't have any.

"Toast!"

I knew we were sunk.

Rockstar offered to take him out walking while we ate, but, you know, poor husband. He's always taking one for the team.

The other diners were clearly aware of us and probably wondered what we'd do. It was at the point where it would've been almost as embarrassing to stand up and admit noticeable defeat than to stay. But I can take a little embarrassment.

I looked at my sister. "I know you want to eat here, but I think I will die from tension if I have to sit here worrying about every happy exclamation that comes from his mouth."

She didn't argue. In fact, she was out of her chair and down the stairs so fast, I didn't even see her go!

I notified our relieved waitress that we would be on our way and we ducked out of that tea room after my sister as fast as we could. The sound of silence echoed behind us.

We bought some to-go pastries from downstairs and then found ourselves a restaurant with some serious ambient noise.

Much, much better.

Two days later, I took the kids to a local organic burger joint (with the most delicious veggie burgers for me!). It's a relaxed, family joint with a typical amount of accompanying noise.

And guess who sat quietly, eating and minding his own business the entire time? My sweet little guy.

Which brings me back to my new theory.

And whether its right or wrong, I'm sticking with lively environments unless the kiddos are home.

**Side note: half of my parental discomfort comes, it seems, when I expect things from kids that I shouldn't. You know? No one would/should expect a 1 1/2 year old boy to sit quietly in small tea room. And I should've turned right around when I realized that's where we were. So that tension I felt? Certainly not my boys' fault.
Lesson learned again:Be thoughtful about your expectations.


**You expect me to wear a snowsuit in the snow?? Oh, the injustice of it all!**

Baby, Mine

**While I am at liberty to dress him up as a little chap, you better believe I will.**

Even though I don't have any kids in the 'newborn phase' at present, I do not take sleep for granted. Because the number of things that can go wrong in the sleeping machine are too numerous to count.

Generally, my kids are good sleepers. But right now, we've got nightmare and molar interruptions popping up like whack-a-moles. Once we think we've conquered the problem, 'WHAAAAAAA!!!!'

Last night was a doozy. Tiny woke up sometime in the early morning with a nightmare. Rockstar dutifully put her back in the bed and turned her lullabies back on. If there's one thing I've learned recently, though, it's that once she has a bad dream, she'll be in and out of our room the rest of the night until we let her stay. Since we still reside in a Queen bed (are you reading this, dear???), there isn't a whole lot of room for a third little body. I sleep fine with Tiny squished between us, but Rockstar objects to her foot in his rib.

After Rockstar and Tiny had done the back and forth several times (separated by stretches of time I'm not sure how to quantify except in increasingly drowsy exasperation), I said, "Let's just let her sleep on the floor next to us in her sleeping bag." She was thrilled and stayed quiet as a mouse the rest of the night.


**Do I look like I could cause trouble??**

Except, hello, Drummer did not get the message that his parents were done with this game! Just before 6, I awoke from a dream wherein I had been super annoyed that some baby had been crying for a very long time. And upon waking and realizing that my baby sounded like he had been crying for a very long time, I felt pretty guilty. I glanced at my comatose husband who was definitely not aware of the crying baby. He'd done more than his fair share (read: all) of the nighttime shenanigans thus far, so I dragged myself out of bed with a sigh.

Drummer was in that wide awake state where I knew he wouldn't go back to sleep if left to his own devices, but definitely needed more sleep. So I pulled him out of bed. "I am so not ready for this day to begin," I thought. And yet, I knew my alarm was going off in a mere 30 minutes. I pulled him close to me and sat in his rocking chair, hoping at the very least for a few minutes of stillness with him.

One minute led to two and then three and then, holy cow! This baby was sleeping on my chest! I was delighted. It had been a long time since I'd gotten to rock my sleeping boy.

As lovely as it was, my body felt desperate to lay down, if only for five minutes before I had to get ready for work. Drummer woke every time I tried to lay him down in his crib, so I'd abandoned that idea. Then I realized, 'Hey--I know where there's a vacancy in this house!'

Cradling him, I crept into Tiny's room, and maneuvered us into her empty bed without waking him. His steady breathing coaxed me into dreamland and there we lay--a mother and her son.

Rockstar crept in a little later to let me know that my alarm had gone off. I couldn't be moved. 'Come get me in ten minutes,' I said. 'I'll get ready fast.' I drifted off for awhile until I heard my husband's voice.

"You'll be late, babe."

"Okay," I said, but I hated to wake my little man.

Just then, as if on cue, his blue eyes fluttered open. He turned his face towards me and our eyes locked.


**Straight to the heart.**

In that moment, I knew that while my body was full of exhaustion and frustration, it was held together by one beautiful, golden word:

Grateful.

A New Year

**There's nothing like seeing Christmas through the eyes of little ones.**

I have friends who take issue with the whole idea of New Years Resolutions. Their general beef, as I understand it, is why wait for January to make resolutions? I get that. On the other hand, I am not averse to a built in reminder to stop and reflect. My life gets so busy that it's easy to just keep on moving without setting new goals or taking a step back to survey where we've been and where we're going.

When I graduated from residency, one of the strangest things for me was the fact that I no longer had an academic or training schedule to mark time by. Life just stretched out in front of me as one great expanse. I think the whole New Years phenomenon fights against that in a good way. It breaks down time into pieces that we can measure and make sense of. As I’ve read blog posts recently, I've seen a lot of, '2010 was a struggle, but 2011 was restorative.' Or, "2011 brought change" etc., I think it's nice to have these discreet time frames that we can assess, learn from, and then move on from. It's like September for those of us no longer in school. A fresh slate. Or, to modify an Anne of Green Gables quote, 'A new year with no mistakes in it'. (uh, well...it was eight days ago.)


**Taking her new bitty twin on a ride on Drummer's new radio flyer.**

So what are my resolutions? Well, they look an awful lot like last years. So many of the most important goals are lifelong journeys.

But there is one overarching thing I want to keep in my mind this year. As I lay in bed last weekend, contemplating the new year and letting my mind consider what I would want to pay more attention to in the new year, one word came to me: Teach.

And then as I thought about my children, where I feel the most urgency to apply that word, two more came in quick succession: by example.

Yes, I want to seize the moments I have to teach them directly about the world, about how to be a good person, about what is important and right.


**She's all about teaching her doll children the way the world works. Finally, she's the boss!**

But I also want to remember that everyday they are watching me, soaking up my example.

Recently while we were driving, a car cut us off, causing us to get stuck at a light. Tiny said, "Oh! Why is that car being so annoying!?" I laughed in the way you do when you hear your own words parroted back to you. And I made a mental note to keep my trapper closed on the road.

But it also underscored what a powerful opportunity we parents have to put out into their world the things we really want them to be infused with.

Last week while the kids were playing in the basement, I sat on Rockstar's lap, and He and I laughed as we talked about the day. Eva looked over at us and a huge smile appeared on her face. "You guys are silly," she said. It occurred to me that a lifetime of witnessing moments like that will do more to inform her opinion of how to have a loving marriage than anything I could sit down and tell her.

How I handle my mistakes and persist in hard things will likely be as pivotal for my kids as any pep talks I could give them about 'not giving up'.

How I look out for those around me will naturally teach them how we treat our fellow man.

So, this year, I do want to accomplish lots of little concrete goals that I've jotted down in my iphone. I do want to think about who I want to be. But more importantly? I want to think about who I want my children to witness me being.

Happy 2012, everyone.

Merry Christmas

**Breakfast with Santa. Drummer looks nonplussed.**


**Who is this guy, mom?**

It's true that the holidays can be a little crazy. There is a lot of baking, wrapping, shopping, mailing, caroling, writing, and decorating to be done. And by the number of articles I see about reducing holiday stress, this is a pervasive issue.

I'm not immune to December getting crazy, though I think I reduce my stress by reducing expectations for myself. i.e., I am not the mom delivering plates of 10 varieties of homemade cookies (though I will decline to say how many of those received that I have eaten!)


**Cookies that I did not make, but have enjoyed tremendously. c/o my MIL.**

But any time I start to get stressed, I make myself think about the Christmas's of just a few short years ago.


**I had my eye on an a semi pricey advent calendar, but wanted to save money. I found this DIY on Oh Happy Day and am pleased as punch with the result. Hopefully next year I'll actually put things in them.**

I've always been a Christmas junkie and so the medical student/resident years were especially hard during the month of December. I wanted so much to bathe in the holiday spirit--to sit by the twinkle lights, go see the nutcracker, and drink hot chocolate at home by the tree. Working the hours I was, that just wasn't going to happen. I would dream of a Christmas Future where I would get to indulge all of my Christmas fantasies.


**Our mantle came with a plug right in the middle. Hooray for more twinkle lights!**


In order to quiet the longing for a month of Holiday Immersion, I'd bring my ipod shuffle to work. Clipped inside my coat where no one could see, I'd put one earbud in, tucked under my long hair. The Christmas carols played on a loop while I walked around the hospital; writing orders, checking on patients (I hit pause!), and answering pages. It helped--my own tiny connection to the holiday season.


**Hark! Drummer spies a train at a gorgeous exhibit we visit every year.**

Now that I'm living that Christmas Future, I feel like I'm duty bound to enjoy it doubly for all the years I couldn't. But I also remember with fondness my small efforts to make the holidays work within the season of life that I was. Because as much as I adore all the parties and gift exchanges, I know that's not what it's really about. For me, it's about the birth of our Savior, back in the meridian of time. And the magic of that was as present with me in my scrubs and clogs, in the four white walls of a hospital, as it is now in my cozy home with carols blasting.


**My connection to Christmas.**

My Christmas wish for you is the same whether you are having an ipod-shuffle-in-your-ear kind of Christmas or a month of Christmas Immersion: That at least some corner of it be Merry and Bright.

Merry Christmas.