Thursday, October 30, 2014

A Day in the Life

People often ask me about balancing school with family. Let me begin by saying that each person's perception of balance is very personal. My equilibrium would make many of my friends and classmates uncomfortable. I'm a mom first, and a medical student second. I was a mom long before I became a medical student, and I will be a mom long after residency is over. I value my relationships with each of my children more than anything else on this earth. My ex-husband felt like I had to choose between medicine and my family. The truth is, you can have both, but it might not be how you imagined it.

In a few days, I will have my second integrated neurosciences exam. The week before the first exam, I opted to attend two professional conferences. My ex doesn't spend much time with the kids unless I'm out of town. I needed the break and they needed dad-time. The conferences were both fantastic, despite catching a bug and spending a day in bed. Need less to say, I didn't study as much as I would have liked and I definitely did not do so well on that test. Chances are, I won't do so hot on this next exam either. But that is where my equilibrium lies--I need to stay connected with my kids, and I'm simply not willing to give up any more sleep.

Since there really is no "typical" day in my life, I'll just recap my day thus far:

6:45 AM Hit snooze on the alarm.

6:55 AM Embrace the inevitable and roll out of bed.

6:58 AM Step onto the scale. How did that happen? Up three pounds this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Normal variations and all that, but I've "normal variated" a total of 14 pounds now since early May.

7:05 AM Enter the family room. Kids munching on cereal; books getting tossed into bags. The back-to-school frenzy of August usually takes two months to subside. I think we've finally hit our stride.

7:25 AM High-schoolers are out the door and coffee is in my cup.

7:30 AM Into the garage with youngest two, stopping at two schools before I head to clinic. I have had morning clinic once or twice a week since mid-August. It is part of my family medicine clerkship that most students do during the third year of med school.

7:55 AM Feeling awfully proud of myself for making it to clinic before 8:00 "team meeting" for the third time (which means that it has taken this long to get into the morning school routine with the kids).

8:10 AM Download Lose It! to my iPhone. The only way to fix the scale is to focus on fixing me. :-)

8:35 AM First patient of the day. Ah, clinic! This is why I am in medical school. Today I saw three patients: two women close to my age and a newborn. My clinic notes are improving each week and I feel like I'm starting to gain some familiarity with common medications. Next year will be nothing but clinical clerkships for me. I'm simply thrilled about that.

12:10 PM Apologize to a club president (I'm an officer) that I won't be attending today's guest lecture since I have a mandatory meeting for the Emergency Medicine class I signed up for. Snag a taco on my way out the door.

12:15 PM Emergency Medicine Elective lecture. This class includes 8 lectures and 5 skills workshops. I know that I'd like to work in small emergency departments in the future, and I thought this class might give me an idea of what I might be getting into. I doubt it will make much of a difference helping me find moonlighting opportunities during my 3rd year of residency, but who knows. This week was focused on immobilizing spinal injuries for transport. Last month I was certified in CPR for the umpteenth time. It's odd to realize that this skill I've been trained in since I was a teenager will actually be put into use as a clerk and a resident.

1:00 PM Lectures for second year students are scheduled until 4 PM. I'm so grateful that my school makes a video recording of all lectures. I feel like I only grasp about half of what is said on my first go-through. Fifteen minutes into my second lecture (while on slide 5 out of 60) I gave up on walking away with much this afternoon and pulled out my laptop to answer emails and to start this blog post. Yes, lecture is just that engaging today.

2:50 PM I'm packing up. I get my middle-schooler around 3:15 each day. We usually have about an hour together before everyone else gets home. Last year he was in a new town, at a new school, with his dad no longer in the home. Needless to say, it was a challenging year for all of us, but particularly for him. This year has been so much better for him. I'm glad that we get to have a little time with just to two of us. Today, however, was not one of those days. I had to drop him off (he'd rather not go along for the ride) as I headed to the high school to give my oldest son a ride to work. Since I have to pick him up, my other kids opt to go along for the ride and by-pass the bus. After all the driving is done, I get home around 4:30.

Tonight's agenda will include helping my budding author with her English paper, reminding my son that Khan Academy is much better at teaching physics than I am (though he doesn't seem to believe me), taking the youngest to the Fall Festival at his school, and maybe (fingers crossed) getting through the lectures that I missed when I left early yesterday and the day before. Just 90 hours until test #2!