Two down, Three to go.

This past weekend we gathered alongside our Ortho department family to celebrate the graduating chief residents. In just a few weeks they'll be moving away and heading to new hospitals on new Army posts. We toasted the end of their five year sentence, recognizing all their endless hard work  that brought them to this place, and the awards and achievements earned along the way. And in turn, they pass on words of wisdom and some gag gifts to the younger residents whom they're leaving behind.

 

Of course this banquet also means that T.J. is (almost) done with his second year of residency - only 4 more call nights left - which deserves all the praise hand emojis! After the banquet we headed to a local bar in our town to prolong the celebration and sing a little karaoke. Here's a riddle for you. What do you get when you take a couple who's normal bed time is 9pm, and the last time they went out was 6 months ago?  Answer, a headache in the morning and a puppy whining at the bottom of the stairs because he's already been up for 5 hours and you're still in bed. It may have been the latest we've been up since before we got married but you can't waste these rare nights, when everyone is free, and no one is dressed in scrubs.

This has been a long year, full of even longer nights alone and one worn out husband, and yet I still can't believe the "dreaded" second year is over. I am so incredibly proud of how hard he works, and how positive he stays through all the endless shifts and emergency room pages in the middle of the night. It would be easy to only look at the negative side of residency, the toll it takes on him physically and mentally, the time spent apart, but that's just not how he rolls. He still walks in the door at the end of the day smiling, with an armful of books and dirty Tupperware from a week's worth of lunch,  and gives me a big kiss and a "hey baby!" and I completely forget that I had to kill the spider in the bathroom because he wasn't home. I feel like we're pros at this now. The next three years of residency are going to breeze by... right??