Life

When people ask when we are up to I'm sure for a second they wonder if I've gone temporarily brain dead because I will often just stare at them while my brain frantically tries to find the words to describe life. Sometimes my mouth even twitches, with no sound coming out. lol. I know this is happening and yet can't stop it. Life right now is just odd.
I'll try to sum it up.
Tuesday was New Years. We didn't find out until the night before, around 8 pm when Brad got home and got a phone call during dinner, that he would have the day off. What a pleasant surprise! We spent the day at home unpacking and organizing and relaxing. I even took a nap :)
Wednesday Brad left for the hospital at 4am. He had been up at 2:30 unable to sleep so he just went in a bit early(4:30am is the normal time) to see his patients. He is in surgical rotation right now and has been assigned pediatrics and transplants.
He did not come home that night and had to stay all night doing surgeries standing on his feet. God was looking out for a little person that night, though, because he had a patient he was able to speak with who was sick and with no translator available, Brad helped tremendously. They had a special connection as well- the family was from Quito.
Thursday, today, Brad finally gets home at noon. He he looks pale and seems unsteady. I feed him, toss him in the shower, and tuck him in for a two hour nap. At 3 I get him up, make him go to the store with me. He chooses flip flops. It's 15 degrees. I think that shows how coherent he actually was. We get jalapeños and a movie- The Avengers. We get home, eat a snack, watch the movie and by 7:30 he's back in bed.
I'm on call for the hospital tonight and tomorrow, I remind him.
It's midnight and I just got back from seeing a patient. It's not every day in my career but tonight was special in that I really made a difference. Because of my skill, I changed the outcome of this patients medical path. The doctor chose a different route based on what I found. It was a challenging study and I felt guided and blessed to be able to find the problem quickly and without error.
So now I will go back to bed knowing that in 3 hours Brad will be up going back to the hospital. I will be on call until 6am and then will be back on call tomorrow from 5pm to 6 am Saturday.
It's an odd life we have, it really is.
In some ways I feel I miss our old life, the one that will never come back. Where we are students and our schedules vary and oh did your 10am class get cancelled? Sweet! Or, no I don't have classes on Thursdays that's my free day. That life is over. I missed a big part of it and that's a regret I am still carrying and learning to let go of. This new life is the one we will have until we retire, I assume. Most days I feel fairly happy with our choices. If I don't think about the debt, that is. If I don't think about how I'd better get as much time in this year and next year as he's still in medical school because I hear I won't see him his first year of residency.
It will get better, though. I know that for a fact. I know it because we will make it so. We will not fall into the rut of working every weekend and long into the night. Although I have not always outwardly displayed this attitude I have tried to maintain that I work to live, not live to work. We didn't enter medicine for the money or some kind of false prestige. Tonight as I held that patient, minutes old, and helped them, trust me.... I wasn't counting the dollars that would go into the next paycheck. And when we all silently cheered that the problem was detected and we could move forward... that feeling is irreplaceable. A small victory we all felt and which gave us energy as we pushed on towards midnight.
I hope you can understand what I'm feeling as I write this. I'm tired and I need to go to bed but I want to write that it's a crazy life but I can't help it. I love it. And I love Brad for being by my side. Me by his side. Us together. I can't imagine it any other way.