Countdown by numbers
Feb. 11th, 2006 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojSo Chris is on call today, and he's told us that (assuming he passes the written exams) he will only ever have to do twelve more calls.
Which is kind of... yeah. We've been living with his *&%$ing call schedule since Daniel was barely two years old. It's going to take some getting used to, to no longer have to deal with it. Not that the schedule he's had in the last couple of years has been all that bad - 2-4/month is a vast improvement over 5-10 - but still. It'll be very, very nice to watch the door hit the back end of his last day of call.
So, 12 more calls. I am no longer totally sure of the date of his last written exam, but I believe it's April 29th. Which is 77 more days. And then from there to the last day of residency, assuming he passes his exams, is 118 days.
It's a little unreal. His residency has been such a huge thing in all of our lives, that it's hard to believe it's within sight of being over. I'm still having a bit of difficulty believing that the orals are done.
And I don't even want to write down what my naturally pessimist soul believes will happen near the end of residency, or just after it. Let's just say that one of the reasons I've had a tough time with the whole mercy-of-the-call-schedule, hand-to-mouth finances, 100-hour-weeks-for-months-on-end resident lifestyle is that one of the things that's supposed to make it all better is that after residency, "That's when you get the Big Payoff that Makes It All Worthwhile." And every time I hear that platitude, my mind very helpfully supplies horror stories of people who save their whole lives for The Big Payoff of retirement life - only to croak two days after their last day of work. Or who save every exta penny they make to buy their dream home - and then have it go up in smoke the month they move in. Or... you get the picture.
But enough of that. Right now I'll just cautiously bask in the idea of never having to put up with call again. Never having to explain to the boys that Daddy can't come home yet again because he really doesn't have a choice about when or how much he works. And other cheery thoughts like that.
It's odd; when I talk to people about the fact that Chris is going to finish residency, one of the things that gets alluded to often is the Huge Moolah that he'll supposedly be making as an independent doctor. Which pretty much doesn't figure into my dreams of the future. We're extremely comfortable right now - we have a nice three bedroom house with a small garden, two cars (OK, they're 10 and 11 years old, but still - two cars!), two computers, two TVs, money enough for food, clothing, the kids' extracurriculars, museum memberships, my tuition... and we really don't need more. It would be nice to be able to afford a new computer/car/clothing that doesn't come from Zellers, but it's not necessary. Compared to about 98% of the planet, we live in absolutely decadent luxury.
Mind you, we're also deeply in debt and would be even more in debt if my mother's insurance and other stuff hadn't come to us, but still. What I'm looking forward to about the end of residency has almost nothing to do with flying down to the Bahamas whenever we want, and far more with being able to spend more time together as a family, and start trying to heal the huge wounds we all have from Chris' bloody exhausting 13-year adventure in medical education.
Well. I think that's my cue to go to bed.
Which is kind of... yeah. We've been living with his *&%$ing call schedule since Daniel was barely two years old. It's going to take some getting used to, to no longer have to deal with it. Not that the schedule he's had in the last couple of years has been all that bad - 2-4/month is a vast improvement over 5-10 - but still. It'll be very, very nice to watch the door hit the back end of his last day of call.
So, 12 more calls. I am no longer totally sure of the date of his last written exam, but I believe it's April 29th. Which is 77 more days. And then from there to the last day of residency, assuming he passes his exams, is 118 days.
It's a little unreal. His residency has been such a huge thing in all of our lives, that it's hard to believe it's within sight of being over. I'm still having a bit of difficulty believing that the orals are done.
And I don't even want to write down what my naturally pessimist soul believes will happen near the end of residency, or just after it. Let's just say that one of the reasons I've had a tough time with the whole mercy-of-the-call-schedule, hand-to-mouth finances, 100-hour-weeks-for-months-on-end resident lifestyle is that one of the things that's supposed to make it all better is that after residency, "That's when you get the Big Payoff that Makes It All Worthwhile." And every time I hear that platitude, my mind very helpfully supplies horror stories of people who save their whole lives for The Big Payoff of retirement life - only to croak two days after their last day of work. Or who save every exta penny they make to buy their dream home - and then have it go up in smoke the month they move in. Or... you get the picture.
But enough of that. Right now I'll just cautiously bask in the idea of never having to put up with call again. Never having to explain to the boys that Daddy can't come home yet again because he really doesn't have a choice about when or how much he works. And other cheery thoughts like that.
It's odd; when I talk to people about the fact that Chris is going to finish residency, one of the things that gets alluded to often is the Huge Moolah that he'll supposedly be making as an independent doctor. Which pretty much doesn't figure into my dreams of the future. We're extremely comfortable right now - we have a nice three bedroom house with a small garden, two cars (OK, they're 10 and 11 years old, but still - two cars!), two computers, two TVs, money enough for food, clothing, the kids' extracurriculars, museum memberships, my tuition... and we really don't need more. It would be nice to be able to afford a new computer/car/clothing that doesn't come from Zellers, but it's not necessary. Compared to about 98% of the planet, we live in absolutely decadent luxury.
Mind you, we're also deeply in debt and would be even more in debt if my mother's insurance and other stuff hadn't come to us, but still. What I'm looking forward to about the end of residency has almost nothing to do with flying down to the Bahamas whenever we want, and far more with being able to spend more time together as a family, and start trying to heal the huge wounds we all have from Chris' bloody exhausting 13-year adventure in medical education.
Well. I think that's my cue to go to bed.
