Plastic Surgery and Minivans

This week I started my last hard rotation of my last year of medical school. It is what the school calls the surgery sub-internship. I did my medicine sub-internship in September and that was very busy and taxing, so I assumed this would be similar. We enjoyed my free time last month and were preparing ourselves for having the kids not see much of me. So we were pleasantly surprised to find (at least this week) that things were not as bad as we had envisioned. True, I have had to wake up a lot earlier (around 4:30-5:00 each morning) and stay a little later, but it has usually been until 5 or 6 pm rather than the 9 or 10pm that we had thought. I only have to be on overnight call 3 weeknights during the month, and that is home call (which means I can go home and they will page me if they need me). I did my first home call Tuesday night and wasn’t called in. Then I have to go in 2 Saturday mornings this month, but I get all the rest of the weekend days off. That is mainly because there are two 3rd year medical students on this month as well, so we get to split up all the call between the 3 of us. I guess what I am saying is that I have had a lot more home time than we expected.

And the time at the hospital has been nice too. We have a really good team and everyone seems to get along great. Plus, I have come to find out that plastic surgeons get to do some pretty cool surgeries. This week I saw a couple of broken fingers that were fixed with titanium plates and screws; the start of breast reconstruction for a lady that had to have hers removed for breast cancer; a skin graft to a wound on a lady’s lower leg; and a medial thigh lift for a lady that had lost 100 pounds after having stomach bypass surgery and now had lots of leftover folds of skin. They have quite a variety of “toys” and so many things they need to know. So I have really been enjoying the time in the hospital as well.

I just wish the time would go by a little faster. This is because one week from tomorrow we will find out if we matched into a dermatology residency program, and one week from Thursday we will find out where we will be for the next 4 years (depending on how the match turns out). We feel really good about our choices, but it still is a time of high anxiety as we try to anticipate where the Lord will want us to be next.

This week we also had to make a big decision about our minivan. About 2 weeks ago the van was hit in the back while Steph was dropping off the boys at preschool. The insurance company of the man who hit the van had us drop it off at a body shop on Monday with the intent to replace the back door and bumper and gave us a rental car for a few days to get by. Well, they found that there was a lot more damage than anticipated, so ultimately, they decided that we could choose to have them do the work and give us the van back, or total the van and cut us a check. We think this mishap has come as a huge blessing, seeing as that van has given us so much trouble since we got it. So we plan to have it totaled, and with the money that they will give us, along with our tax refund, we decided to go out and look for a newer and nicer van to replace our old electrical lemon. We went out van shopping yesterday and found one that we really like. It is a gold 2001 Chrysler Town and Country Limited with automatic sliding doors, a 4 disc CD player, and many other nice gadgets and toys. And above all, it seems to run nicely and is in our price range. We are having the financial work processed this weekend, and if everything works out, we can probably get it sometime during this next week. We will have to make car payments for a little while, but it will be minimal because of the money we can put down. We are really excited for this change in fortune. Heavenly Father continues to watch out for our needs and finds ways to bless us when we try to do what is right.

We also had fun playing some games this week. We had the Kearls over Friday night and played lots of games. The kids get along so well and we have so much fun together. They watched our kids for us while we went van shopping Saturday morning, and then Tyce and I stayed at his place to watch some of the kids while Steph and Faith took the others to Sofia’s birthday party at Gymboree. Then we played some more games last night. It has been a very enjoyable weekend.

Monday for family home evening we decided to start memorizing a scripture each month, and we thought it would be good to start with the Articles of Faith, so we are working on the first one: “We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” I love these simple statements of what we believe. Steph did a lesson on service and we decided that we want to come up with a service project that we can do this next month for someone and help the boys to see how they feel when we do the service.

Today the theme in sacrament meeting was forgiveness. And in the last hour of classes we talked about repentance. In Sunday school we focused on some of the main teachings of Isaiah, including about temples, the gathering of Israel, and his testimony of Jesus as our Savior. I am so grateful for the scriptures we have and all the testimonies they contain about the mission of Jesus and why He should be of so much importance in our lives. We are so excited because Camden gets to start nursery classes next week – maybe we will be able to get even more out of our weekly meetings then!