Isley Family Life: August 2013 Photos

In August, Aaron and I were both working pretty long hours again. Aaron was on surgery at a hospital 45 minutes outside of town. His work days started at 5:30 am, so he was getting up at the disgustingly early hour of 4:00. I got to "sleep in" until 5 am (ha. ha. ha. Fact: prior to med school, I only ever got up this early on the rare occasions of an early morning flight) because my work days started at 6 am.

I was in the newborn nursery all month, which is pretty much the cutest rotation ever. It was a month full of squishy, adorable, healthy newborns. Anything remotely frightening that could possibly happen warrants a transfer to the NICU, so it really is the rotational equivalent of sunshine and daisies. I also got to do a lot of circumcisions this month. I always feel like I must sound like such a weirdo to admit this, but I really enjoy doing circumcisions.

Having two back to back rotations with 6 am to 6 pm hours with only 4 days off per month does lead to some pretty wicked fatigue. So much so, in fact, that I overslept this month, not once, but twice. One of those times, I woke in a panic around 7, texted the other resident, threw on scrubs, brushed my teeth, and was out of the house by 7:05. I sped out of our neighborhood like a bat out of you know where, and was promptly pulled over by a motorcycle cop that I had failed to realize was a motorcycle cop in my panicked haste. I burst into genuine tears that did not save me from getting a speeding ticket, as well as a ticket for failing to have my insurance card in my glove box.

Aaron had some crazy late nights on surgery. For instance, one night, I finally called my friend, since her husband was on the same rotation, because I couldn't get a hold of Aaron and it was after 10 pm! I was so afraid he'd been in an accident, but my friend was able to reassure me that they were all still working on a case. Aaron didn't get home until after 11 that night. Craziness. In addition to long days of surgery, he was also "house officer" for two weekends that month, meaning that he was the doctor taking care of patients on the general floors of the hospital overnight on Friday and Saturday. So, those couple Fridays, he'd wake at 4 am, drive 45 minutes to the hospital for his surgery rotation, drive back around 5 to the hospital in town, take a 30-45 minute nap, and then work all night doing new hospital admissions, until 7 am Saturday morning. And then be back again that evening for another 12 hour shift. Crazy, huh? Just crazy.

We had a crazy childcare saga this month, which was very emotionally draining. Julia, however, did start preschool (more on that in a different post), so that was cute.

Despite all the craziness, we did sneak in some fun in August with our girl. I think Julia keeps us sane.