Doctor Vacations

Any spouse/s.o.of a doctor knows there is no such thing as a spontaneous vacation.  In residency we had to pick our weeks off up to a year in advance and now calendars are set in November for the full upcoming year.  Want to take a week off after the call schedule has been established  - be prepared to meet the wrath of your partners.

I grew up in Europe and while my parents visit yearly I haven't seen my extended family in 6 years.  Understanding how doc schedules work my parents invited us (they pay airfare) to visit this summer (actually this week).  Of course we said yes, and back in September my husband notified his office that he would be taking ten days off.  

Fast forward 9 months, another partner planned a trip with is family with some overlap which leaves 2 partners to handle a few days of q2 call.  Admittedly that sucks for them, but too bad.  Especially because what I think that they are most annoyed about is ....

1. Blackhawks are in the Stanley Cup finals (to which the practice has season tickets) and no one will be able to attend one of the games

2.  For those of you saying - but it's q2 so one could go to the game - well no, because one has a member/guest golf event at his golf club that they are both attending preventing from seeing a Stanley Cup final game.  

Leading up to the week of travel means my husband has been on call 4 of the past 6 days, so I have to take care of everything. All my husband needs to worry about day of is packing.  Lucky for him he married someone whose premom career was group travel. 

- rental car booked and confirmed at destination

- passports have been taken out of our safety deposit box

- $100 of local currency procured

- additional cash withdrawn to convert onsite 

- all credit card companies have been called and advised where and when we are traveling to avoid declined charges 

- mail and newspapers stopped

- home security company advised of our plans
- packed my own stuff
-supervised kids packing

If we had stayed in town maybe (just maybe) those tickets would have trickled down to us.  Instead we'll be watching the Hawks hoist the Cup tape delayed in Europe.