We Matched!

So, we made it through the first part of the match process. Michael found out today that he did match into a preliminary (1-year) program and into a dermatology program. The website that gives information about the match showed that there were 327 total dermatology positions available for students this year in the US, and every derm spot was filled. Plastic Surgery [which offered 92 spots this year], Thoracic Surgery [which only offered 3 spots], and Vascular Surgery [which offered 9 spots] were the only other programs that filled all their available spots (not including the less-common combined specialties, such as “Pediatrics/Emergency Medicine”). And, out of the 1001 available transitional year spots, only 22 of those were not filled yet. Michael, I’m really proud of all the hard work you have put in to get to this point, and the fact that you were still able to put in the necessary time and effort to be a good husband, father, and friend at the same time. I love you!

Now we are just waiting until Thursday to find out where we matched!

Sleepless in Milwaukee

So, last week Isaac woke up right as we were going to bed at night and wanted a bottle, and then he got up about an hour earlier in the morning than he normally does. That was unusual, since he has been sleeping through the night for quite a while now. (And a little inconvenient because Michael has started into his surgery sub-I this month, so he has been getting up around 4am to get ready to go to the hospital each day and then being ready for bed by around 10pm, and I have been trying to get up with the boys if needed so Michael can get some more rest). Well, the next night Isaac slept just fine, but Camden woke up in at 4am and wouldn’t go back to sleep. Michael had already gotten up and given him a drink of water before I even woke up. I got up and changed him and tried to get him to go back to sleep in his crib, but after he cried a while I finally brought him into bed with us (around the time that Michael had to get up to get ready for work), and luckily he actually slept in bed with me for a couple more hours before Kolby and Eli woke us up. Camden hasn’t had a problem with waking up for a really long time. The next night Isaac woke up around 1am and wanted a bottle. He was starting to get a little stuffy, and since his problems with his nasal airway when he was born he can breath well, but if he gets a little cold he sounds so stuffed up and he just wakes himself up a lot at night. I fed him, but he didn’t fall asleep quickly like he normally would have – he was content to stay awake for another half hour after eating before I finally just put him in his swing and went back to bed – he must have fallen to sleep on his own. The next night I was so tired, and luckily Isaac did better. Around 2:30am, though, Michael rolled over and told me that one of the boys was crying. I asked who it was, and he said it was Eli and then rolled back over and went back to sleep. I went in and was glad that all Eli wanted was for me to pick up the stuffed animals he had dropped on the floor, and then he quickly went back to sleep. (I gave Michael a hard time the next morning for waking me up on a weekend after I had stayed up with the boys earlier in the week, but he had no memory at all of waking me up or any of the kids crying the night before, and it was ok since I wasn’t up for long). Then last night Isaac had such a stuffy nose and he couldn’t even keep his pacifier in his mouth. He had woken up crying four times in the last half hour before we went to bed, and after I had to get up two more times to help him, I brought him into bed with us [that was the second time this week I had brought one of the kids into bed with us, and I have a pretty strict rule about not bringing them into our bed -- but sleep deprivation makes such "rules" not seem to matter very much]. He was snoring so loudly, and after half an hour of that I put him back in the swing and was very glad when he slept through the rest of the night (he even slept in until about 9:30am, which is much better than the 6 or 6:30am waking time he had been averaging last week). Unfortunately, one of the kids at church yesterday must have had a little bug or something, because around 2:30am this morning Michael woke me up and told me that Kolby had thrown up in bed. I found him in the bathroom, his clothes were just covered, and Michael stripped the bedding from his bunk bed while I took off his clothes, bathed him, and got him dressed again. We set him up a little ‘bed’ of blankets on our floor next to our bed and tried to get back to sleep. Fortunately, Kolby seems to be feeling better today and I am crossing my fingers that he is over it. Isaac has been sleeping pretty peacefully so far in his swing this evening, and we are just waiting for the last load of laundry to finish drying before we go to bed too. It sure makes a big difference when you are used to your kids sleeping through the night and they all decide to become nocturnal all of a sudden. Maybe tonight we will actually be able to sleep until morning.

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!