Archive for April, 2010

Week 37: the Boston Marathon

April 19, 2010 · Filed under Life, Pregnancy, Running

Watching it, not running it, that is. Today was the 114th Boston Marathon, and my husband ran it for the second year in a row. I love the Boston Marathon! In fact, writing about running it was how this blog got started. I still think back very fondly on my experience in 2007 and can’t wait until I can run another marathon, although I think it will be several more years. Here’s my logic: next year seems difficult given that I’d have to start training from scratch plus I’ll have a newborn. The year after that is out because it will be my first year of fellowship which will be crazy busy. The year after that we’ll probably be trying to have another kid. So that means I’m looking at ~2014. Too bad. My current goal is to shoot for a 10K in the fall. The two options I’ve come up with so far are the Tufts 10K or the 8K the day before the Philadelphia Marathon (with the idea that my husband could run the marathon).

Back to the marathon. Thanks to my awesome co-resident, I got the afternoon off from work so that I could go down to the finish and watch as Eddie ran down Boylston. I got a pretty good spot on Boylston and had a great time taking pictures with our fancy camera. I was really excited because from the athlete tracker, it looked like Eddie was heading for 3:35 finish which would have been awesome. Unfortunately, he was struck by leg cramps (again!) so came in at 3:56:09. Still, this almost a 10 minute PR over last year! Very exciting. After watching him run down Boylston, I met him and his friends in the family meeting area. I was pretty amused by how absolutely exhausted I was from standing for over an hour and then having to walk quite a ways to meet him. He looked great at the finish and was even able to go up and down stairs pretty easily. I think there’s some chance that I looked a little more pathetic than he did. Standing for a long time is difficult when you’re this pregnant. Of course, we’ll see how he looks tomorrow…

Our baby continues to be quite active and seems to enjoy making my entire stomach move. I saw the ob last week who said that the baby is still quite high. This week I have to go for an ultrasound to make sure she’s head down. I sure hope she’s facing the right way because I’m not so excited about the possibility of external cephalic version (fancy medical talk for trying to turn the baby) or the possibility of a c-section. Unfortunately, the only time I could schedule the ultrasound was for post call which means I’ll potentially be talking about these options when I’ve gone ~30 hours without sleep. Ah, the life of a resident.

I’m pleased to report that my to-do list is slowly getting shorter. RDASH is done and went very well. I’ve submitted my rank list for fellowship, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll get my first choice. I’m almost done with the schedules for next year and I’ve pretty much finished editing the article I submitted a while ago. I have my grand rounds presentation tomorrow, and I’ll feel much better when that’s done. Then I just have two calls left on the wards before I switch to elective (with back up) next week. Can’t wait! We’ve got lots of baby stuff, although we still need to get the car seat installed and finish cleaning up the study so that we can set up the crib and changing table. Overall, not too bad.

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Week 35: Where to live?

April 5, 2010 · Filed under Life, Medical, Pregnancy

Medicine has this crazy system called “the Match” which essentially determines where you live at various stages in your training. Unlike college and med school and most normal jobs where you apply and then get accepted and then decide where to go, for residency (and most fellowships), you rank the programs in order of preference and then they rank you, and then some fancy computer program (or, let’s be honest, probably a monkey playing with numbers for all I know) assigns each resident to a program. I am currently applying for fellowship and my rank list is due in a few weeks. I think I know where I want to go but I remain torn between “prestigious” programs and programs where I think I will be happy. I’ve also found that pregnancy seems to exacerbate my natural tendency toward indecision. Plus, I have the added fear that moving away from my family with a young child is perhaps not the brightest move. Plus I need to take my husband’s preferences into account as well. So complicated.

After talking with pretty much everyone I can think of (fellow residents, the chief of heme/onc at my program, my parents, my husband, my friends), I think I’ve figured out my first and second choice. Now all I need to do is actually email the programs and let them know, but this final step makes me very nervous. I’ve lived in this city my entire life, and while I’m sure moving somewhere else would probably be good for me, I remain anxious about the possibility of change.

On the topic of pregnancy, I have officially stopped running. My last run was on March 11th at 32 weeks. I’ve switched over to walking which is not nearly as fun but hopefully is better than nothing. My stomach continues to get bigger but so far I still feel pretty mobile. I definitely think that I walk differently now which is pretty funny. I notice that my hands and feet swell in warm weather but I can still wear my rings and shoes (at least for now). Oddly, I feel like my morning sickness has come back to some degree. I don’t throw up on a regular basis but I’m nauseous a lot, especially in the morning and at night. Quite annoying. My friend held a baby shower for me this past weekend which was very fun. We got an awesome running stroller from my parents which I’m very excited to use. We also got lots of cute clothes and blankets and books. Plus some more practical things like a car seat, an extra car seat base, an umbrella stroller (yes, apparently we need two different strollers), diapers, sheets… Excellent. And my husband is hopefully going to Ikea tomorrow to buy the crib and changing table. Crazy to think that there’s only a few more weeks.

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