PGY-3

Our last year of residency seemed to literally fly by.  I found out that I was pregnant with our third child, and we began fellowship interviews.  Michael's schedule was much lighter and with 4 months of outpatient work, we felt like we were in heaven.  I began to relax considerably.  The depression that I had felt in our first year of training had vanished, and I felt stronger and more able to cope with the challenges that lay ahead. The most exciting part of the year for us was the interviews.   We decided to drive so that we could spend the time together as a family.  We took our old video camera and set off on journeys to Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Connecticut and New York.  We stopped along the way for walks to stretch our feet and the children entertained themselves for hours with the Magna Doodles that we had bought for the trip.  We actually ended up buying several along the way.  Without a doubt, these were my fondest memories of residency! I wasn't able to go to the interviews in California and Florida because of the distance. When Michael was in Florida, he called me from his hotel room and exclaimed that he was looking out at an alligator, throwing pieces of his sandwhich at hit.  He felt that he had found "the" program for him.  I grimaced, feeling this oddly familiar resentment creep back up.  In a way, I guess I felt that he had again made a decision without me.  Florida did sound pretty enticing though, and with the beach an hour or so away I gave it my thumbs up too. It was tough watching the other spouses prepare to start life after residency.  They were buying homes and new cars and were preparing for "real" life.  I knew that we were going to have three more years of living paycheck to paycheck, though we had been assured that call was from home and that the hours were much more humane.   We hired a local Florida moving company and prepared for the move.  We were anxious to find an apartment or home and prepared to drive to Florida to find something.  By this time, our youngest was a month old.  We drove for two days and began our search for housing with a real estate agent who assured us that we'd find something affordable.  He didn't seem to understand that we would be earning a fellow's salary and the homes that he chose were well out of our price range.  After two days, we gave up and began a frantic search for an apartment.  Because the area was populated heavily by students, most apartments were rented by the room.  After another stressful few days, we settled on bright pink apartments that looked...well, a bit on the run down side.  I was feeling tired and unhappy and was having trouble keeping my mood from spilling over into the family.  I had hoped to live in a nicer apartment but knew that our salary and debt limited us considerably. Our moving van showed up 5 hours late with only one person to carry all of our furniture and household goods.  Michael and I took turns helping to carry things down and then I stayed and tried to clean our rented townhouse for as long as I could.  I woke up in the morning and went back to clean.  We were off schedule and it seemed like things would never get cleaned up.  After a catastrophic spilling of white paint all over the basement floor right as the landlord walked in, we were finally ready.  Saying good-bye was strangely difficult.  I realized that I had come to this small community counting the days but at the end of our stay had come to love the area.  I had begun to feel at home there and to establish good friendships.  I hoped that things in Florida would be as nice. As we drove to Florida, my grandmother passed away.  She had been suffering from Alzheimers disease and cancer....I had expected to lose her, but I had hoped that it would be later.  I never had a chance to say good-bye or hold her one last time.  Michael was so concerned with beginning fellowship that it was hard for him to be compassionate.  After everyone was asleep, I left the hotel we were staying in and drove around crying tears for the loss of someone so dear to me, for moving again, and for fearing what was to come......I felt very alone.