Again, it's been a long time...

Or maybe it hasn't been that long, but it sure feels like it has. I'm now 5 weeks into my third year of medical school, another beginning in my super-long journey toward being a doctor. I had my first rotation at Jefferson, in internal medicine, on the Blue team, which meant I took care of patients with cancer and lung disease. Wow. Talk about a crash course in what it is to be a doctor. In the first week, we lost three patients. Granted, we thankfully didn't lose any more after that (that we know of, lots of them went home to hospice), but it was a tough first week.

There were two patients that really stood out. One was an elderly woman who had contracted hepatitis years ago and had required a liver transplant. Seven year slater, she was diagnosed with liver cancer, whic his now metastatic everywhere. The poor woman is in horrible pain all the time, has fistulas all throughout her digestive tract and a chronic abscess in her pelvis, which is colonized with a very resistant form of bacteria. She was in the hospital almost the whole time I was there, sometimes mentally with it, sometimes not...but so, so sick. Once, when the intern asked her where she said "I'm in Hell." She was suffering so much,a nd there was practically nothing to be done for her, but her daughters were terrified to lose her and wanted EVERYTHING done to keep her alive. Seeing how much she suffered, how much pain she was in, shaking there in the bed. It was just awful.

The other patient was a middle-aged woman who came in coughing, with what she thought was an exacerbation of asthma or allergies, or maybe just a reaction to the heat. She really had small-cell lung cancer. She was a heavy smoker, but had never been sick a day in her life, and now in her early 50's, she was sick with one of the worst cancers a person could get. We had to put a stent in her airway to keep the tumor from closing off her breathing before the chemo and radiation could shrink the tumor. We had to get her a stent placed, chemotherapy, and radiation al lin one day. She was very spiritual, and at one point, before her bronchoscopy, I offered to pray with her. It was amazing how much reaching out to her in that way helped her...when I left at the end of my 4 weeks, she gave me a huge hug and called me an angel; said that she knew God would be with her because he sent me to her. It was so, so touching.

Now I'm at a new hospital and will meet new patients, but I wanted to do a little update. Life is really changing, isn't it? It's just so strange how quickly I can go from being a student with my face in a book to being someone who can help people in the hospital. I don't pretend that I know enough medicine to help people in that way yet, but what I can do now feels very, very good :)

On the baby front, well, not really any progress at this time. We've had a HUGE adjustment to make with Megan's new job, the new puppy, my new school environment, the new apartment (and a bunch of landlord issues I don't even want to discuss right now), and even more that I'm sure I'm not even touching on yet...it's just been insane. So all baby plans are on temporary hold, but as soon as I have something to say, I'll say it :)

It's been a while...

Again, it's been a while. After finishing the boards, I started helping Megan to move us, we moved for two days straight, then drove down to Orlando, stayed there 10 days, drove to Hilton Head Island, drove home. Next day, Zoe came home, then two days later, I started orientation for school. I had that until yesterday at 5, then started my Medicine rotation today at 7:30. That's so totally the short version, but I may expand upon it in the future.

My first day was busy, but good. My resident is really nice and I think I'm going to be okay. I was really scared to start after orientation, but I think I'll be just fine :) I need to do a little research now, but I will try to write more later.

This is it.

I take the test tomorrow, June 18, 2007. I will arrive at the center at 7:30 and I will be done by 5. And I'm sick to my stomach and scared, but in the end, what will be will be. Think good thoughts for me, please please please. I hope I make it through without too much pain!

Busy busy

I'd love to blog, but seriously, I have no time at all. I just found out our puppy girl is coming home on July 2! We're naming her Zoe! Hereare two recent pics, one sitting in the breeder's dining room and the other in the yard. We can't wait for her to come home on the 2nd of July!

Puppy!

I had a chat with the breeder today, and it looks like all systems are GO for our puppy girl to come home on July 2. She's from a really great breeding and her grandsire is Brooks, one of my FAVORITE goldens of all time! They are just the cutest little things EVER!! Check out the video here at this link...http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6649821001861485712&pr=goog-sl. The narrative might be boring, but they are just the cutest little teddy bears EVER! They are 6.5 weeks old now and we'll know which one is ours when they are 8 weeks. We don't get her until she's 11 weeks though, after vacation.

Anyway, the litter theme is Bugs, so we need to think of a registered name with "bug" in it. Any suggestions? Things like "bug in your ear" or "snug as a bug" or "Stop bugging me!" Please make suggestions! We need input. If the name fits, we'll call her Hope, but if she's a nutcase, we might call her Luna, so the registered/call name won't necessarily match.

Anyway, back to my break time! I only have 3 hours per evening and I'm half done already :(

Would have been a great story

You know, trying for a year, and on the last try when we'd totally lost hope Megan FINALLY fell pregnant? Well, that's not a story we get to tell. Test is negative on 14 DPO, and we're done.

It's really bittersweet. I mean, we never thought this would happen. With age on our side, and her getting pregnant before, we thought that this would be easy street. I mean, how many 24-year olds REALLY have trouble getting pregnant? Most 24 year olds are trying NOT to get pregnant becuse they're so damn fertile. Not us, not us.

So here's what's next:

1. Megan starts a new job, making TWICE her current salary, on June 18! This includes benefits, and we couldn't be more trilled. She'll be working at Millionaire Estates (not really, but I stole that pseudonym from the game LIFE), writing their press releases, starring in their commercials on their private TV station, and playing games with the old rich people who live there. Yay! No more nannying!

2. We're getting a puppy! Perhaps sooner than we thought. Today we have to decide if we want a pup from the litter due to go home on June 9 or July 7. Or maybe we'll get one from the June litter and not have it come out until July so we'll be back from vacation. Either way, Hope is on her way!

3. Studying for the boards is going pretty well, but I have the weekend off :D I like weekends off.

That's it for now, time to go spend time with my girl.

They're kids, jackass! Bring them HOME.

I was just reading the news about the boy they found dead in the river in Iraq. 20 years old, barely out of high school, and apparently a great guy. Dead. Reading that news left me bawling. My neighbor from Rainier, WA was killed there too. He was also 20. I guess reading this news made me think of him, watching him ride his bike when he was a kid, and thinking for the zillionth time that this needs to stop. How many more of our kids really need to die over there?? Bring the soldiers home to their families and pump up our defenses at home.

I'm really angry right now...sorry for the mini rant. Back to work.......

Update!

I'm taking an actual break :) Yay! I ended up getting 20 pages behind yesterday, which had me COMPLETELY freaked out, but luckily I caught up today with time to spare! Yeah!!! I'm so excited that I don't have to miss my break to catch up!

So what's been going on? Megan had a really bad day at work yesterday. Basically, the family had her come in early because she had a pediatcician appointment. Then the doctor called, and told the family that they wouldn't do the Varicella vaccine just yet since she's not yet a year old. So they decided to cancel the appointment, and TELL (not ask) Megan to stay an extra 2 hours. They didn't ask if she had plans (she did), they just told her to stay. Besides, she hadn't brought lunch with her and they won't let her eat any of the food in the house, so she was STARVING. Those of you out there who have nannies, it's not okay to treat them this way. Don't just assume that their only purpose and activity in life is to serve your family. They are an employee, not a servant or slave, and common courtesy applies. Needless to say, Megan was really upset. This after they got pissed at her for not coming to babysit all day on Mother's Day Sunday on 12 hours notice.

The good news? She has an interview tomorrow for a better job tomorrow morning! Please hope, pray, chant, do whatever you do....she really needs out of this family. Come to find out the previous nanny only stayed there for 4 months...had Megan known that to begin with, she might not have taken the job.

We're 8 DPI today and still aren't hopeful. We did a test yesterday to see if the trigger shot was out of her system, and it wasn't (obviously 7dpo is way too early for a BFP anyway, so it was the shot), so I think we'll test on Sunday or something like that. Just to know that it's negative, so she can stop the crinone and we can move on with our collective lives.

Time to go clean! I'm studying at home tomorrow so my office needs to get cleaned out :) Now that the vacuum is no longer broken, I can vacuum! Yeah!!!!!!

I'm in a good mood.....

Boards, ugh

Hardly any time to blog now with the boards. Ugh. This is awful.

I just wanted to take a minute to post a photo of our new backyard! We move in one month!! Check out how deep that is, and on the right there is a little garden plot. I'm so excited :)

I'll write more when I take another real break.

The upcoming weeks

This is going to be a loooooong blog post. I have a whole lot to say and I have to say it all today, otherwise I'll have no time to blog and I'll never get to see it! I'll arrange it by topic :D To be helpful, really:

School - I made it through my second year!!!!! I passed my OSCE practical (really well, actually, the graders are on crack) and I'm sure I passed my last exam. Hell, half of it was OB/GYN and I know WAY too much about that anyway. Now on to studying for USMLE Step 1. I have until June 18 to study for the exam and I'm going to be giving 1000% until then. Tomorrow I'm making up a scheudle, then Monday I begin! I can hardly believe that this time has arrived already. I mean, how did I get here? This year flew by so fast (granted, I was preoccupied with TTC most of the time). I can hardly imagine how fast future years will go by. Anyway, I will post some updates on school, but not too many.

Apartments - I don't know if I've posted too much information about this, but we have apartment issues. Our roof has leaked since we moved in and they keep saying they've fixed it, but leak it does. So we told the landlord we were sick of it and wanted out of the lease early. Boy, they sure changed their tune. Apparently they don't want to lose us as tenants, so they want to deal. They've been showing us new apartments right and left, and we think we may have found a new place to live. It's in the best part of our nieghborhood, where there is a Starbucks, our favorite pizza place, our favorite bookstore, our church, the grocery store, our bank, a bakery, and a freaking cheese shop are all within two blocks! I LOVE living in the city sometimes :) Anyway, it has a HUGE yard (not really even by city standards, it's probably 20 feet wide and half a block deep, and fenced...all grassy. The dogs would be in HEAVEN! We haven't toured the inside yet (we will Monday), but we peeked in the windows and could see the kitchen, which is really nice, and the hallway, which is, well, adequate :P Anyway, we're very excited about it and barring catastrophe, we will be moving there before too long!! Which is great, because most of the other apartments we've seen that are less expensive are unworkable for so many reasons :(

TTC - Megan is surging today! However, since it's the weekend and our clinic is the Baby Factory of Great Confusion, we'll be going in for HCG shot on Monday and insemming that same day. It sounds totally cracked to me. Anyway, this cycle is more a formality than anything else, so I'm not overwhelmingly concerned. Meh. What can you do. Anyway, We'll enter the TWW on Monday and know if we're prego two weeks from then, safely separated from my boards testing date.

Adoption - We're trying to decide on public vs. private adoption. We really see plusses and minuses to both options, but we're just not certain yet. We really would like to start with a young child, newborn to 2 years old. We would love to adopt an older child, but since we're young now and have not experienced parenthood yet, we would rather start with an infant or toddler. If anyone out there in cyberspace has a story to share, you're welcome to share it :)

Church - We've had two meetings with Pastor Nice in the last couple of weeks and feel really good about joining. We'll officially join at the Pentecost. I'm really excited to be welcomed into a community that is so attuned to social issues and is 100% accepting of our family! And Megan is really thrilled to get back in touch with her faith, so much that she went to bible study this week and is going to join the choir (once her cold is gone). I think she really needs the human interaction beyond the girl she nannies for. SO happy this is moving forward.

Work - Megan has three interviews! One for a job that could double her income, easily, and give her a very marketable skill. PLEASE let's hope she gets it!!! Pray, hope, whatever you do, pleasepleaseplease! One other is a temporary part time thing for extra income. The other other one is a job that pays better than the nanny thing and has benefits, but isn't as great as the first one. Regardless, we have options, and we're really happy about it :)

Random life - Stupid crap keeps happening. Our vacuum is broken, our showerhead snapped off, our landlord is randomly charging us $40 for an unlock service, damn dog peed on the floor (that NEVER happens...)...blah blah blah. Really, sometimes I wonder if there's someone up there going "HA ha," you know, like Nelson on the Simpsons.

Time for me to go participate in real life now ;)

I'mDoneI'mDoneI'mDone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, that was, like, hard.

Okay, sorry. I'm just so incredibly worn out that I don't have much articulate to say, other than I'm DONE and I don't have to study for two days, then I will be studying more than I ever have in my life for 5 weeks, then VACATION!!! Then I'm a Third Year. Yikes. They're going to hand me a scalpel? Crazy people.

Off to make Mac and Cheese for our crazy post-exam potluck tonight ;) More this weekend...

Scheduling, good news and bad news

I got to switch my OB/GYN rotation to Jefferson! So now I don't have to drive to NJ, which is great! The only bad thing is that my friend won't switch with me for York, so I'm still stuck there. But there's no better way to make sure we get pregnant this cycle than to make sure I have to go to York when the baby is due!

Cycle and Adoption

I really don't have time to blog, as I really need to pass my test this week so I can study for the boards, but life is really busy. And I need to talk. We're moving ahead with this cycle, even though our HSG was cancelled...so there could still be a tubal problem of some kind. We will not be TTC anymore after this cycle until I am making an income large enough to finance injectables. So we'll consider that chapter of our lives closed. Neither of us thinks that this cycle will work, so there is surprisingly little stress involved. I mean, it can't work, so why worry about it? If it does, hell, we'll be shocked.

So now we're trying to get out of our lease. We want a less expensive place, and we want away from our landlord because they will never fix the leaky roof. We've had enough! And we want to move on with life, gosh darn it! So we've seen a few places and there are some great prospects out there! Very exciting!!!

We're also doing some preliminary research on adoption agencies. Well, Megan is anyway. Trying to find a really gay-friendly one or two.

Megan is ALSO looking for a more corporate job that has good benefits and good pay. Her nanny job is fine, but the family is SuperRomanCatholic and the gay thing isn't going to go over well. So time to find something new. I'm hoping something crops up soon.

Finally, I'm getting geared up to study for boards. Wow, lots on the plate for me. Not like it isn't taking its toll. My stress level is higher than it's been since I was a kid and I cry more often than I have in a very, very long time. I hope we catch a break soon. We really need one.

This week sucks beyond sucking

-Financial difficulties
-Starting a new cycle
-Getting the HSG cancelled randomly after falling over ourselves to schedule it, and then deciding to scrap the cycle
-Un-scrapping the cycle after so many tears and stress
-Almost running out of gas late at night
-Toilet breaks
-Dog decides to be an ass and try to run out in front of a car (she's fine)
-Fucked up my physical dx practical, though not badly enough to fail
-Whined too much to my poor friends who have listened to me too much already anyway

There's more, but I just don't feel like writing any more about it now. Will it NEVER end? We just want closure, we're ready to be done with all this. One day soon we'll get another fertility workup once I'm in residency, and then we'll get pregnant with injectables or IVF, after adopting our first one or two, but Clomid is NOT going to work. There, I said it. Clomid is NOT going to work.

So there.

Protocol

Clomid: CD4-10
HSG: This Friday 2:30 p.m.
Monitoring: At home until the day of the surge, then 1 bloodwork and ultrasound to confirm
HCG: Trigger shot with the natural LH surge
Crinone: Whole LP after ovulation

The RE actually came up with this on her own, so we decided to do it. And we really want to know if her tubes/uterus are clear and decided to go full out (well, in terms of our budget this is full-out) for our last try with our last vial of swimmers.

Am I such a dork that I can't wait for Megan to do a HPT after the trigger???

Lol. yeah, I am a dork.

Oh, did I say I PASSED my Physical Dx test? I'm SO relieved. And I almost passed my practice USMLE with NO studying leading up to it, so that made me feel REALLY good. REALLY REALLY.

One more thing, we had our first personal meeting with the pastor of our new church today and it went really well. We found out our church voted unanimously to be Reconciled, which means accepting of gay families. That was just fantastic. And the congregation has a really stron social justice bend, which is appealing to us. Anyway, we meet with him again next week!

Okay, I need to study for my practice Physical Dx test which might be tomorrow. I needed to get a friend to switch times with me (Thank YOU Sarah I LOVE you!!!!) so I could go to the HSG with Megan. I hope it all works out.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

I'm sad. I just got my 3rd Year rotation schedule and I'm slated to go to YORK for 6 weeks in the Spring. YORK. Stupid Stupid Stupid YORK, which is more than two hours away from here by car, which I would not have because we only have one car and Megan will need it. Stupid Stupid Stupid YORK. And I can't switch it with anyone because it has a minimum/maximum enrollment of ONE, which is me, so I can't drop it. Maybe if I can find some nutty person who wants to switch with me, then I can get a different rotation. But this is SO not cool SO not fair.

Here's my full schedule:

July 9 - August 3 : Internal Medicine at Jefferson (Center City)

August 6 - Sept 28: Internal Medicine at Methodist (South Philadelphia)

October 1 - November 9: Surgery at Methodist (South Philadelphia)

November 12 - December 21: Anesthesiology and Ophthalmology at Bryn Mawr Hospital/Wills Eye Hospital (Center City)

January 7 - February 15: OB/GYN at Virtua West New Jersey - Vorhees (SW New Jersey, not that far away)

February 18 - March 28: Pediatrics at Delaware Valley (Jefferson and DuPont Hospital for Children)

March 31 - May 9: Family Medicine in STUPID STUPID YORK (Way the heck far away from Philadelphia)

May 12 - June 20: Psychiatry at Belmont (Center City)

So overall, not bad, except the York thing.

In other news, we still have no idea what we're doing this cycle. I called to report the start of Megan's period yesterday, and they called back saying that the doctor needed to look at the chart before they gave us instructions. WTF??? Are they telling us the doctor hasn't been looking at our chart the whole time????? I should find out today. This is bullshit. I think we need a new RE. I mean, this clinic is top in the area, top in the State, but they're really noncommunicative and apparently the doctors don't look at our chart. Fuckers.

More later...

The winds are changing...

It was negative, but we were expecting that. Welcome to the eleventh hour, the eleventh month of our trying to have a baby, and a new plan.

We talked a long time about options, and here's what it looks like. We have one vial left, and we plan to use it. We wrote a long e-mail to the RE asking questions...questions about Megan's fertility, questions about drugs, questions about options. Either we'll do a low- to no-intervention cycle with no monitoring this month or take a little while off. Natural cycle sounds like a good idea to us at this point.

If this doesn't work, which we're pretty certain it won't, then we plan to look into adoption, or maybe a known donor situation. We're not going to go there with injectables and IVF right now, especially with no "guarantee" of a baby. We thought about adoption in the beginning anyway, so it's just a little rearrangement :) When I'm working full time, this will be something we can afford, but not now.

So we'll see what happens. Life goes on.

12 dpo - Deflated, of course

Megan peed on two unauthorized sticks today and both were BFN. Of course, one had a fantastic evap line, but that's all it is, an evap. Me no likey evaps.

Now we're talking about options. Break? Stop? Try with me? IVF? Injectables? Adoption? Throw selves off bridge?

More to come.

11 dpo update

We caved. BFN. It sucks, a lot, but what can you do. Yeah yeah yeah, I know, it's early, blah blah blah I know. But that doesn't really make it hurt any less. Granted, I've never been able to hallucinate a line on a FRER test and I could hallucinate one today, but that doesn't mean it's there. Could mean I need therapy.

Oh, and I missed my physical exam practice session today. I thought it was tomorrow. I feel like SUCH a fucking idiot. Depressed AND an idiot all in one day.

Yeah. So next try is probably our last until we can afford adoption. Or IVF. We're just out of money and out of steam and out of, yeah. This was supposed to work, DAMN IT! Why on EARTH is my healthy, young, darling partner unable to conceive??? WHY????????????

Fuck life.

Eleven. Days. Post. Ovulation.

I had another exam this morning, which I don't think went so well, but I'm reasonably sure I pulled off a Pass. Ah well. On to more obsessive things.

Today Megan is 11 dpo and we're waiting to test until at least tomorrow. I know I haven't posted much about how she's feeling, but here goes a summary:

-Dull pokey feelings in the lower pelvis, worst on CD5 and stopping on CD9.
-Bubbly or fluttery feelings in the lower pelvis, off and on all day, starting around CD6 and still going strong.
-Slightly sore bbs since ovulation, which turned to excrutiating after starting Crinone 7 dpo.
-10 minute dizzy spell 9 dpo after going to the bathroom (she had to pee reallllllly bad on a car trip), another very short one 10 dpo after standing up quickly.

Yeah, so there you have it. If it wasn't for the Crinone, we'd be sure she was pregnant with triplets or something! But no, we need to wait it out. Wait wait wait and wait some more. At least we've made it to 11 dpo without testing! We had a weak moment yesterday, but were way too lazy to go out and buy HPTs.

Oh, right, and Megan's interview! It went really well yesterday and they should let her know today if they're going to hire her! Yeah! Everyone wants my girl :) Helps that she's the BabyWhisperer, she can calm and quiet any baby.

Now it's time to go get my brownies out of the oven (YUM! Thanks Waly for the cool brownie mix!) and study, or something. Three more tests to go and then it's Boards time.