What's the threshold?

As a doctor's wife, you manage a lot of shit on your own. By nature of your husband's profession, you have entered a triangular marriage. This is an iscosceles triangle, note definition below:

In an isosceles triangle, two sides are of equal length. An isosceles triangle also has two equal angles (namely, the angles opposite the equal sides). An equilateral triangle is an isosceles triangle, but not all isosceles triangles are equilateral triangles.^[2]

You are the unequal angle, the longer angle, the one that gets shafted. Those patients will always come first, and anything related to the job of caring for them. There is the obvious bedside rounding or operating time or clinic time. But there are journal clubs, resident meetings, morning conferences, and dinners. Not all of this means your doctor husband is away from home. It's almost worse though to have him home but unavailable. Related activities are many. This could include reading endless articles, figuring out the call schedule, returning phone calls.

And you have to believe in the gig. I mean, people are sick, someone's got to help them. And you wouldn't want someone operating on YOU without reading a thing or two about the operation right?

But after a while, the role of superwife becomes a learned behavior, and, worse, an expectation of the marriage. It's hard to find the threshold of what you can and can't handle. What is truly worthy of assistance? What trumps those doctor-related activities?

For example, on the coldest day of the season, I came home from my son's Irish dance lessons (yes, honestly, yes, Riverdance, he loves it) to hear my basement smoke alarm going off and black smoke pouring out of our furnace, quickly filling the basement and house. I call Dr. Arm to tell him. His response, "Do I need to come home?" Reflexively, I say, "I don't know, I'll call you back after I talk to the furnace people." I turn off the emergency switch, silence the smoke alarm, call the furnace people (the fire department would just freak everyone out and they would have to call the furnace people anyway), open a bunch of windows and doors, and calm two frightened children and one anxious dog.

After I begin to feel dizzy and get a headache, I realize we need to get out and away from the house. It is 5:45pm. Dr. Arm is at a dinner, not even in the OR. I call back. No answer. Move kids to car, put in DVD. Return to house, gather food, sippy cups, and Pack n Play. Return to car. See Missed Call as Dr. Arm but no voice mail. Wait 25 minutes. Call furnace people back. Supposedly STILL on their way. Call 3 friends, leave messages about needing a place to stay. Try Dr. Arm again, slowly realizing I should not have to handle this alone. He answers: "What's going on? Are they there yet? Do you need me?" Me: "Well, I'm not sure we can sleep here tonight so you might want to come home and get some stuff before it gets to 30 degrees in the house."

So now, I'm angry eventhough I did this to myself. Mistake #1 was not telling him, "Yes, come home NOW. The fucking house is on fire (okay, so there was no visible open flame) and I'm scared and so are your kids." But we've gotten to the point where I am too capable. The threshold for disaster has crept up and up to the point where the GD house may burn down but doctor duties are still more important.

When he finally got here, he handled everything with the repair man and even fed the 4 year old more food. Seriously though, doesn't a basement filled with smoke trump a doctor dinner? In my mind, it should even trump clinic. I'm no longer fit to judge. My threshold is out of whack.

Comments

[Alyson Gilles]

Apparently you've been living in my house. Because this NEARLY exact scenario happened just last week. Blaring smoke alarm, baby with 102 fever and pneumonia, sans black billowing smoke. Husband asking me to call him back when I get it figured out and THEN he'd "See what he could do" about getting out of there "a bit early," but it "doesn't look good." MMkay, and I'll see what I can do about having sex with you sometime in this century. But it doesn't look good.

And get out of my house. Or start payin' rent. ;)

[Melizzard]

Oh yes, just last spring found me yelling into the cell phone that "This is one of those times when you just need to tell them you have a family emergency and you need to leave! Your daugher's face needs stitches and you need to be there!" as I frantically drove our bloody crying 5 year old to the pediatrician.

But did I stand up for myself when I was the one in trouble? No of course not. I just called the ambulance and crawled to the front door in just a towel to unlock it when I had food poisening and was so dyhydrated I needed an IV. You see he was on call in the ICU that night. And those people were "really sick."

[Nicole]

I have never figured out Trackbacks, so let me just tell you here, I'm talking about you over at my place. Well, really, talking about me. But with your inspiration. ;)

[Marci]

smaller scale example is last week. 2 yr old last two hours at school until I am called to pick her up due to fever (WED), the next day I am using vacation days since my mother is no longer able to watch my kids on TUES and THURS now, for Friday I hire a sitter to watch the girls so I can go into the office for a few hours. THURSDAY was a LONG and painful day of trying not to scream while taking care of a sick 2 yr old and almost sick 4 yr old. We stayed home all day. THURS pm, I ask my husband if he has any flexibilty in his schedule since I am preparing for a client meeting next tuesday and could really use some time in the office to prepare. He says yes, he has some flexibility. After I get the girls in bed I ask him about this again. His FRI schedule is wide open. He reluctantly agrees to be home by 3:15 pm so I can get a few more office hours in. I think he wore JEANS on Friday - meaning he didn't see a single patient. He complained later that he missed a couple pages/calls Friday afternoon and it doesn't look good. one of those calls was at 5pm. I was home by 5pm. Besides, I brought my 4 yr old to work with me so he didn't have to juggle both of them for 2 hours! I guess since sick kids has always been my problem, it is too much to expect that will ever change. We have be adjusting to attending-land since JAN 3 or so. We get paid once monthly now. I get the girls ready for school alone again since he gets the early train that leaves when they are waking up. He sometimes gets home after bed/bath and misses seeing the 2 yr old for days. It has been great. Coupled with personal life crisis for me lately, I'd say 2008 has been really bringing it so far. My top priority now is to figure out why my 4 yr old with a bedtime of 7:30 or 8pm is still awake at 9 pm or later some nights.

[Nutmeg]

Just want to say I was so here last winter. colicky and sick 2 month old screaming, husband at a journal club dinner and water gushing out of a broken pipe in the basement.

Frantic phone call. Do you need me to come home?

My answer was a steadfast yes. You need to come home now.

Of course, I called back a couple of minutes later and told him he could stay.

Thanks for this.