Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Medical School



I can remember a time when we were untouchable. We were excited for a challenge, excited to take on the medical world- him saving lives one illness at a time while I dominated the domestic home front with grace and power on my own. We refused to believe the warnings that medical school would be unimaginably difficult and become a hardened negative experience in the end- a mistake even. Well, we were wrong in one way. It WAS so hard. But we were right to be stubborn in our optimism, too. I couldn't have predicted the sickening feeling that would come when my husband drove home on a motorcycle at 11 o'clock in the morning after a 32-hour shift. The fear I would feel that his exhausted body would drift off in a moment of weakness and he would crash. I couldn’t have known the pain he would feel when a cancer patient turned friend would pass away. I didn’t imagine the weight of every temper tantrum, every dinner, every scraped knee, and every cry for help solely on my shoulders. I didn't predict the exhaustion. I predicted late nights and early mornings...and somehow not the exhaustion. I never knew how quickly those early mornings could come. And in the thick of those sacrifices, I didn’t expect the sting of comments from friends about doctors’ corrupt prescription writing and vaccinating. On the other hand, I could never have anticipated the invaluable lessons we would learn. We learned to make sure to never have Mike study for a thing on Sundays because it seemed to be his ticket to pass all kinds of tests he had no business passing. We learned that following the gospel and putting our family first was possible despite this unspoken rule in medicine that it is not only acceptable for doctors to put their families 3rd or 4th on the list of priorities, but that wives should step aside. We learned just what it meant when people told us that taking in the medical school curriculum was like trying to drink from a fire hose. We learned that playing the victim card took all of the pride and joy out of every huge hurdle we were crossing and that positivity brought fulfillment and bonded us to a support system of amazing friends. And last but not least (plus a bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting), we learned that having a baby right before graduation is obviously bad timing, but that we would do it all again and be just as stinking happy about it as we were the first time.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Canada

and Colorado,
but we will start with Canada.
Michael and I are notorious for having bad luck on our vacations. Don't let us come visit you, your house will flood, we will give everyone the stomach flu, and surgeries and illnesses will pop up and you won't even know why. 
SO, our flight into Buffalo, NY got delayed and didn't get in until about 12:30 AM. We had to go get our rental car. We got close to the rental desk and I thought to myself "hmmm, they look closed." But that couldn't be the case because we had a reservation and they knew we were coming. We got closer and there was no one at the desk. I then thought "How horrible would it be if we had to get a hotel and stay over night. Haha, what a nightmare?" But I really still thought it would be fine because we had our reservation. After one angry phone call, a cancelled rental car, a happier phone call followed by a re-reserved rental car, we were dragging out two children (jack dead asleep in the stroller, eleanor punchy and awake) two carseats, and 4 bags to a hotel to stay the night in Buffalo. It was 3AM. I have never seen Eleanor think so many things were so funny.
The next day we got on the road early. 
Then Jack threw up.
Then we got stuck in traffic. 
Our 2 hour drive turned into 6!
But it was all totally worth it to see my parents for the first time in TWO years!

We got to follow them around to a fireside that they were speaking about and then a baptism the next day. The baptism was in the old chapel that President Monson attended when he was a mission president. We also got to see his old mission home!

We decided to celebrate Jack's birthday a few weeks early and do it with Grandma and Grandpa.
We ate lunch at the Mardarin (which is a buffet. We didn't eat the next three meals the food was so good and we were so full) 
We fed the ducks, got caught in a rainstorm, and fed the one legged duck. Jack was very determined that he would get the one legged duck as much bread as he could!
We came home and mad robots out of soup cans and nuts and bolts and opened presents.

 
  
 
 We went into Kitchner to see Heidi and Van and familiy.
Jack LOVED the cousin time.
 

We went into Toronto to walk around at the lake.






 
 



 And then we toured the city

 



 
 

China Town




Colorado
Colorado was a breeze...they lost our carseats two times...but it happens!
Michael presented research and we got to RELAX the rest of the time.
That's right.
I said relax.
We hadn't done that in a long time...and won't for a long time. But we love it!
 
 

4th of July