Remember him?

Remember Garrett?

To say that Garrett's schedule was crazy this last summer would be a huge understatement.

Let me put it this way: he came to church with us once.  Once, from June through August.  The girls and I were gone for 3 Sundays in July so that was partially to blame.

Or I could put it this way: he had ONE Saturday off, all summer.  ONE Saturday when he wasn't sleeping off a night shift or actually working a 13 hour shift, or away at a radiology conference.

And finally: We went to bed at the same time probably fewer than 10 times all summer.

His summer has consisted of pretty much straight night shifts, or mid shifts.  Noon-midnight for several weeks, 8pm - 10am for several weeks, and now midnight-9am for a month straight (six nights a week).  ONE more week left, though, so we've almost survived it.

In case you are wondering, no this is NOT normal for a radiology residency!  But his "class" only has 9 residents (they started out with 11), so they have to make up all the call and weekends that those two missing people would have worked.  It's a long story.  Yes, there are dozens of other radiology residents but a first year can't work overnight alone, for example.

It's been hard.  Honestly I didn't expect residency to be this hard (and I'll admit, I had pretty low expectations because I had heard all the horror stories... I just didn't think they really applied to us). It's hard to spend every evening by myself for weeks on end.  It's hard to keep the kids quiet all afternoon during the week, and all day Saturdays and Sundays when he's working the night shift.  It's hard to have to turn down invitations to hang out with friends because sometimes I just don't feel up to going somewhere by myself with all three kids in the evenings.  We turned down invitations to lots of fun Saturday activities (the beach, floating down the river, hiking, etc) that I just couldn't do alone.  And I really don't like going to church alone (but hey, I'm certainly not in the minority there, being without my husband at church!  It's just that I'm more consistently without my husband, I guess).  I'm just worn out.

Of course, it's not all bad.  When Garrett is home sleeping during the day and Olivia takes a nap in the mornings, sometimes I run to the grocery store or the library alone for half an hour.  That's nice.  Also, when Garrett isn't home for dinner I don't bother cooking anything fancy, which is a nice little break.

"They" say that it will all be "worth it" in the end -- when residency is over.  I assume that people mean that financial compensation makes up for all the time he's not around.  I just don't believe that anymore, I'd rather have him be here with us. I'd rather have the option of planning our lives around things that are important to us rather than his work schedule.  And I just wrote a huge paragraph about this but I just deleted it because this post is already waaay too long and I don't want to sound depressing.  That's a thought for another day.

Anyway.... SIX more nights of overnights!!!  Can't wait.