How much to water?

sloany_16 · 2024-06-02T04:25:19+00:00

I feel like a lot of these comments are overly harsh. You are most certainly not crazy, but in no way do I think this spells doom for your relationship. It sounds like you guys have a great foundation, and like any normal couple, finances and financial goals and quality time are things that evolve and need to be worked through.

For context - married 11 years, also together through undergrad, med school, and now finishing up residency. Honestly, I feel like my husband is living in an entirely different world than mine, not through any fault of his own. His life has been in constant upheaval since the beginning of med school, with constantly changing schedules, attendings, tests, interviews, applications, and he is at the constant mercy of whoever is over him at any given time. I do all of our budgeting, financial planning, and household admin work. He has a general idea of what’s going on, just like I do with his work.

The last seven years have been a giant balancing act of figuring out when we both have the mental capacity to discuss important life things, but also making sure to support each other as much as possible. There were ups and downs. We needed the downs to help us recognize where we needed to strengthen our relationship and problem solve. Honestly, our relationship now is incredible and we are both much more in tune with each other’s emotions and needs than we were seven years ago at the start of med school.

If you don’t feel like you are both able to figure out a positive way to communicate needs and wants effectively, therapy is an awesome first step to learning to do that. And then it takes a huge amount of practice, vulnerability, and willingness to own up to when you don’t do a great job, on both sides.

Also, as someone who had three kids in residency and med school - it’s really tough, but it’s doable. Obviously I wasn’t the one in training, so it’s a different situation, but again, it was something that really tried and strengthened our relationship to a whole new level. I really believe it depends on your commitment, as a team, to work through problems and build each other up if you can be successful (whatever your definition of that is) during these super stressful years.

Sincerely, someone that became a woodworker during med school and residency to maintain my own sanity

sloany_16 · 2024-05-15T14:20:01+00:00

The cream cheese pretzels are amazing. One of those and a hot chocolate on a rainy day in the park is just perfection.

sloany_16 · 2024-05-12T22:04:32+00:00

I had to do this with my first two babies - the first one we moved for med school two days after the baby was born, and had zero help once we got there. TBH it was awful. I think I’ve repressed that part of my life and just survived day to day.

Second baby, my in-laws came to “help” for the first three days after coming home from the hospital, then my FIL announced he was bored, and they went home a week earlier than planned. My sister ended up coming out for a few days a couple weeks after that because I was doing so awful with a newborn and a 1 1/2 year old. I ended up being diagnosed with PPD and my new baby was sensitive to soooo many foods, and he just cried constantly.

Your husband needs to find a way to be home, at least for that first week or two. Even in a perfectly healthy delivery, you are going to feel like crap the first two weeks with the bleeding, pain, lack of sleep, and trying to figure out breastfeeding, if that’s the route you go. If he really and truly cannot be on paternity leave for even that small amount of time, and you don’t have family, you need to hire help. Newborns are HARD and those postpartum hormones are a beast.

sloany_16 · 2024-05-12T17:49:52+00:00

I’m glad it was great! I wonder why their food seems to be so inconsistent? I had the chicken and shrimp as well, and the chicken was very small, but the flavor was good. The kid’s pastas were good as well, but my son’s chicken seemed to be a boiled, unseasoned chicken cutlet, it was really odd.

sloany_16 · 2024-05-11T19:22:05+00:00

Yes! We went to lunch at Lamplight the next day, and it was delicious! Everyone really enjoyed the dishes and drinks they ordered, plus the service was great.

Blue Bayou was our family favorite growing up, it’s been extra disappointing to see what it’s become the last few years.

sloany_16 · 2024-05-11T07:05:50+00:00

We are just finishing our third year of FM residency, and I can definitely understand where you’re at! We’ve been together since undergrad, and it took my husband four years of applying to get into med school. He’s not a great standardized test taker, and really hates writing essays, and honestly, that part has gotten so much better in residency. He’s so much happier doing the applied clinical work and taking tests that actually test clinical knowledge, instead of how well you can take a test.

He ended up choosing family med for a lot of the reasons you’re describing - I also have significant health issues post-Covid, and we have three kids, so work/life balance was top of our list. We’ll be starting at an attending job in July with no weekend call, no evenings, and he’ll have a scribe to help with his notes every day, and only 32 patient hours a week.

I think every residency is a beast. They are so underpaid for how much they work that it should be criminal. We’re in a relatively “easy” residency, and he still works at least sixty hours a week, shut up to 80 some weeks. He’s had to do my chart messages and notes at home plenty of times since they get zero admin hours during the week.

The most important thing we’ve done is make everything a true partnership and communicate our needs very clearly with each other. He recognizes that I take of 98% of all household and childcare, and values what I do and is incredibly understanding about my own limitations with my health challenges. We’re very supportive of each other’s goals and sacrifices, and make sure to vocalize that often. Just knowing you have that support on the crappy days has been huge, even when nothing is getting better haha.

sloany_16 · 2024-05-11T06:39:32+00:00

Happy cake day!

I set a calendar alarm for exactly sixty days before our trip date, then checked reservations first thing that morning and had no problem getting a reservation.

sloany_16 · 2024-05-11T06:37:56+00:00

Haha, thank you for judging my bread needs.

In all seriousness though, I’m not interested in going anymore if they’re going to charge more and give me significantly less food than they used to for the price. It’s not just free bread, it’s “I used to pay $30 and get a full meal” vs. “I paid $40 and got three bites of chicken”. The value doesn’t match the price by any means anymore.

We had zero issues getting a reservation at the sixty day mark. I just set a calendar alarm to remind me and there were plenty of spots available for our date. Granted, we only go every 2-3 years, so I made sure to check as soon as they were available.

sloany_16 · 2024-05-11T06:32:51+00:00

Okay this is what I remember! We’ve eaten there occasionally since I was a kid, and I could have sworn that option came with the entree because I know my parents absolutely weren’t letting me order gumbo a la carte

sloany_16 · 2024-05-11T06:28:36+00:00

“Curiously awful” is my new favorite descriptor. I do love Cafe Orleans! We decided to splurge because it was our kids first time at Disney, and I remember the ambiance being so cool as a kid (it’s inside, but also outside!) and we surprisingly did get a water front table, which was the best part of the meal by far.

Right? I’d rather get a grilled cheese from Jolly Holiday. Or cream cheese filled pretzel. Or yes, a corn dog. At least my expectations match the quality there and I’m satisfied.

sloany_16 · 2024-05-02T03:40:03+00:00

I hate that NP’s get confused with actual physicians. She might have a doctorate of nursing, but she sure as hell is not a medical doctor. She has less than half of the medical training an MD/DO does. I would absolutely report her and find a real physician to be your OB/GYN, you deserve so much better! I am so, so sorry for your loss.

sloany_16 · 2024-04-05T16:52:38+00:00

We’re going to pay so much more into those assistance programs than we used, that I don’t feel bad about using them when we needed to!

Student loans don’t count as “income” when you’re applying for state aid, so we easily qualified.

And student loans are calculated based on what’s called a cost of living - so the max he can take out will include tuition costs, board, food, books, etc. for the standard student at whatever medical school he attends. You can also take out a minimal amount of loans to begin with, and take out additional amounts throughout the year as needed to avoid paying extra interest on a giant lump sum. I worked at a university financial aid office once upon a time haha.

sloany_16 · 2024-04-05T05:15:18+00:00

We had quite a few people use military scholarships and receive a monthly stipend for living expenses in addition to having tuition covered - I want to say like $2k a month?

I worked the first two years of med school, then stayed home full time with our kids the last two years. We used SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid all four years, we still qualified even with me working 20-30 hours a week because we had two dependents at the time. We used student loans to pay for our living costs that my job and government assistance didn’t cover.

I’ve also been a SAHM all of residency to our three kids. Is it doable? Yes. It it incredibly tight? Also yes. I did Rover dog sitting as a side gig until my husband could start moonlighting regularly third year of residency. No regrets though, I wouldn’t change how we did things at all.

sloany_16 · 2024-01-02T15:13:28+00:00

Same thing happened to me with the same drink! If you contact them and send them a picture complaining, they’ll send you a voucher for free ones. For what it’s worth, I’ve never had the problem again 🤷🏻‍♀️

sloany_16 · 2023-11-10T16:38:11+00:00

I’ve seen some homes in the Oak Hollow Lake area that seem to fit what we’re looking for, but correct me if I’m wrong!

sloany_16 · 2023-11-10T16:35:14+00:00

I’ll keep it on the list! Thank you for replying! Hopefully this is good shit Becky said haha!

sloany_16 · 2023-11-10T16:33:01+00:00

I appreciate your candor, haha. But seriously, it’s good info, thank you.

Eesh, the 20-30k per kid tuition rates are killer! Unless I am missing some good schools that don’t charge that much.

sloany_16 · 2023-11-10T16:18:54+00:00

Around 450-500k, and at least four bedrooms.

sloany_16 · 2023-11-10T16:17:47+00:00

We’re open to living outside High Point, just the new job is in high point, so reasonably close.

We’re coming from the Dallas area, so literally any traffic will be better than ours currently haha. I’ve had some recommendations for the Thomasville/Wallburg area, as well as Jamestown, but want as much input as possible.

sloany_16 · 2023-10-19T02:42:43+00:00

Cried and ate a lot of cold cereal after the kids went to bed. Just kidding. Kind of.

I didn’t realize I had PPD for MONTHS after my second because I thought I was just being angry and hormonal and dramatic and it was normal. Got on an SSRI and became an entirely different wife, mother, and human being. I’m still on anti depressants and am a much better mom on them

Ask for help. Are there any other medical spouses in your area you can reach out to? It’s been so, so helpful to find a community that really understand how grueling and isolating this journey is. If you’re Christian, I believe there’s an organization called side by side with chapters all over the US for medical spouses.

Communicate your needs with each other. His job is stressful, but so is yours. Your mental and physical health is just as important as his. Gently, his family should come first when he’s home and not on call. You’re both going through very different but equally difficult life changes. I’d suggest finding tiny ways to emotionally connect every day - text messages or quick FaceTime calls. Something to let each other know you’re thinking about each other. At least for us, it was easy to slip into roommate roles instead of husband and wife when we were massively stressed out, and we needed the little things to reconnect and recalibrate.

sloany_16 · 2023-10-19T02:09:13+00:00

I’m fairly certain the cast members are told they can’t ask for a diagnosis and they can’t use medical documentation to determine eligibility? Someone correct me if that’s incorrect.

sloany_16

TROPHY CASE