update and stress of being poor

[AUCMD2006]

So I've been on and off the site for a while, things have been going great professionally. I advanced to a second year, my surgical case load and numbers are better than I could have imagined, I "passed" if there is such a thing, my specialty boards in service exam, I am doing things in the OR and really taking care of patients by myself meaning I am finally starting to feel like a real doctor. I even had the brass to tell a nurse "thats the way it is ordered because that is the way I like to do it" when she wanted to change one of my orders..then I realized that I am starting to get preferrences for doing things and how I handle cases. I even have a card in the OR with my glove, suture etc preferrences which is very interesting.

there is a major toll on other side of life though and up to this point everything outside of my focus has pretty much been left alone. things are piling up though and focus on the final goal is harder to maintain. I swear things right now seem like a bad contry music song or a greek tragedy. First off I was served divorce papers a few months ago and although expected hurt deeply. I guess med school/residency finaly got to her. Next up my mother has uterine cancer..not just uterine cancer but a leiomyosarcoma, rare unpredictable with some pts surviving 2 years and others 30. My grandmother passed away last week. I have been tapped out financially so much that I have been eating the free on call hospital food for weeks and actually had to call my father for some money...I haven't "needed" money from my parents since I was 17. now all this with the knowledge that i really can't take any time off because there is a $260,000 bill just waiting to get paid if i take any time off.

now we all have situations that we are working through and i know many people in worse situations so i don't bring this up to get warm and fuzzy responses... i point all this out because people don't realize the sacrifice and determination it takes to get through this journey. I can see how it turns people bitter and I am trying very hard not to keep heading down that route and its becoming easier and easier to wonder if its worth it. was it worth it? i don't know, I guess some days it is some days its not.

so some people will look at the end result and be impressed that you are a physician but no one outside our circle truly knows the seventh circle of hell we go through.. i love what i do, i love the fact that i am a physician so i just focus on that and keep on moving waiting for my first attending paycheck :D

[argazul]

Thanks AUCMD for sharing such a private experience that we newcomers rarely have any idea of. Its great that you still have the passion for your work and hopefully you will get to the end soon (and to that attending paycheck too ;)).

[kemper6036]

sounds like you're going through some rough times, but just keep on truckin

[MedicRN]

Hey RR, sorry you are going through this crap. Look into Sun Trust's residency loans. Up to 30K for residency bills and mostly deferred until graduation. These loans are made SPECIFICALLY for residents who need a little extra. No school approval or any of that garbage, just mano e loan company.

Mike

[MDXRS22]

Just the perfect reflection and the right timing. When I see how far you got, and how well on track you are, I can't stop thinking about the rest of us and how long we have to go on this path.
So many of us are being questioned on what we are doing, about what we are learning.
They often asked what did it take so long, and when are you gonna make the money? Like if they were the one paying the loans or even helping you reading the books. It's a whole and lots of frustrations to deal with family members, friends and even the wife, like it is your case. When you are far away from you, they can't wait for you to comeback home, and when you are home, they can't wait for you to leave.
You have the constant whirls of complaints of what you did and what you failed to accomplish.

This is the path you chose, and this is the circle that we draw at our mercy and maybe within the painful and hidden troubles that we have to handle constantly.
You may end up losing your wife, and you may also unleash the monster that take away the affection you used to receive from your children and close friends.
There is always a doubt about what you do, and you are being questioned for anything. Like when one of my wife's friend asked me the other day. When are you gonna finish school? I have a friend of mine, he is a doctor, it did not take him so long to finish school. The woman stare at me like she was screening me for employment. The fact that I was invited to go out with them, putting aside the heavy load that I have to read and try to decipher, it makes me even more furious, and I wanted to slap the hell out of her. I wonder how long she has been sleeping with that so called doctor friend, and what did he say or explain to her about what it takes to become a doctor and how long it takes to get to there.

I am sure we all have those awkward moments when relatives or whatnot want to filter your intellectual content for no apparent reason. They are some fools who think they can make you look like a fool. Folks when you tell them that it's a "hematoma, " they think that you want them to order you some special dish at the restaurant.

By the way, there is the nagging about how long you have been away, and how long you took to be just with books. Your children have friends you have their parents who are already doctors or some who have nurses around them are coming with some under the table type of questions, stories to either trap you to make you look stupid. But when you give the right answer, there is always the, "Oh, my friend told me it was not that." You have to go the extra mile to bring good senses to the nonsenses by digging into recent and updated books to bring them to reality and also explain to them why medicine is such an advanced field that keeps on rolling and rolling and why we need to constantly updating our vanishing knowledge. It is such a pain! I should have been in the construction business! When I say it's a nail, it's just a nail, and nothing else to say.

You are being served with the divorce maze, and many of us are being served with the infidelity traps. I heard of some stories that wanna make me just go puke, and I can't stop asking myself if I am not next.

It's more than the sacrifices that turned some doctors sour and also keep them on the hate factor. It is so much to deal with and so little reward for being in so much debt and deprived of almost all. We just need to handle our own because we are in a delicate business.
I am glad that you are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. But for many of us, it's just the beginning of a nightmare.

They will never understand us and what we are going through!

[jiggin23]

Thank you for this very honest and frank post. It truly does help. I am only at the beginning of this journey, finishing up in a Post-Bacc program. I ask myself a lot why I made this decision, I left a good paying job in the IT field to go back to school; not just me but my wife and three kids as well. It has been a hard transition, going from a decent salary to being on a student's budget again. We definitely must enjoy the journey, if we only look to the end, we may not be happy what we find when we get there. Keep your head up man, you will make it, and in the end it will all make sense. I am sorry to hear about your wife, I have been through that as well, and it too will get better with time.

[MDXRS22]

The wife stuff gonna keep on spinning here a lot...


I think I am falling hard on the stress factor with my wife as well.

Like today, and many other days...she always wants me to drive her places and maybe go to visit a family member, or someone who is hospitalized. I left my pile of books in a corner to do so, expecting when I come back home later at night, I will be able to study and maybe regain what I missed. But when I get home, it's quite the opposite. it's when she wants to talk about senseless stuff that I don't have any interest in or want to listen to at all. It's the time she wants to blast her favorite tune or listen to that old high school musical that has been on the shelves for years. I am so pissed! I do all I can to give her all the attention and affection she deserves...I mean it all the way possible. From the long, everlasting sex, with multiple dripping and org..ms to the soft and tender one and passionate kissing, and you name it...

I realized that maybe she does not care about my part of the bargain and how important that coming exam is to (me) us in general. I thought I could have been securely studying at the library. But because she has been home with some back pain, I am obliged to stay home and to help with almost all, while I have to constantly neglect the books and even try to listen to the audio files in the cars is also impossible. She believes that I am ignoring her, which is completely false. I took time out to explain, re-tell and tell what that coming exam is about. But God knows...I am heading straight to the failing cliff if my time keeps on rolling like that.
I just got home after walking in the mall for 8 hours with her, talking for ever and ever, looking for maybe nothing important, or nothing that will be used at all in the house...
I am so pissed when she got there and turned both the radio and TV on at the same time. When I told her that I need to concentrate and be able to read for a while.
She told me that I need to learn to study with the noise.....
Shoot! She is my wife and I love her so much....I wish the library was open at night.


The stress of really being poor......

[ds_in_tx]

Sounds like your lady needs to get her head screwed on straight, MDXRS22.

A reminder of the big pile of debt that you *both* are responsible for might be useful, once in a while.

That's a crummy deal, for sure.

[BiologyBY]

My sympathies

[Jon-Monkey]

I have been with my fiance for nearly ten years now and I am not looking foward to these kinds of conversations. We have had them in the past while I was trying to play hockey and then with undergrad. Now she made the comment of wanting to have kids "before her eggs go bad and we have a retarded kid or something". I think it is sometimes hard for them to see that what we have choosen to do in life is not solely for our benifit but for the unit as a whole. Good luck to all........

[Arkie]

From the long, everlasting sex, with multiple dripping and org..ms ...

http://antville.org/static/saunabiber/images/wut.jpg

[MDXRS22]

http://antville.org/static/saunabiber/images/wut.jpg

Yeah:)
The one that you use blue and yellow pills plus eros and many more....

priceless ;)

[Dude80]

Hi there. Dr. N and P are ****** total *******

[NWS]

On a serious note, just sit down with her and explain that she won't be able to enjoy nicer things in life (like a new BMW and diamonds) unless she lets you study. The way to appeal to a woman's pseudo intellect is through greed.

[rocky_wayne]

Sounds like some people on here need to find new wives. If she doesn't understand you need to put in long hours for studying, imagine how she is gonna act when you are headed home at 7pm for dinner and get called back to the hospital to care for a critical pt. When you finally come in the door at 11pm, this is a true test of love. And any woman griping about eggs going bad is one sure sign that would leave me running for the door

Rock

[ZIMAgo]

Sounds like some people on here need to find new wives. If she doesn't understand you need to put in long hours for studying, imagine how she is gonna act when you are headed home at 7pm for dinner and get called back to the hospital to care for a critical pt. When you finally come in the door at 11pm, this is a true test of love. And any woman griping about eggs going bad is one sure sign that would leave me running for the door



Okay lets stop ragging on the wives-
The truth is AUCdoc is going though a whole lot of unforeseen tragedies, but the core of him problem- being broke, overworked and exhausted was always entirely predictable. We all knew we had a tough decade coming when we signed up for this, most of the ones that didn't see it coming are gone now, they're back home doing something a lot less stressful. Fact is that we all see something amazing at the end of this tunnel, something other people can't understand or appreciate. Most of the time I can't even articulate why I want to be a doctor.

As one of the people fortunate enough to have the support and company of a spouse (specifically in my case- a frustrated fiance that doesn't have a clue how to fit a wedding into my schedule) every day I remind myself that I chose to be here today, and not with her, and that can't be an easy knowledge for a spouse to live with. Not taking it for granted makes it a lot easier to understand how, after a couple years of supporting you through a mission that half the time you dont know yourself why you're pursuing, someone will get angry over a couple spoiled eggs.

[ZIMAgo]

(she made me post this)