Clancy got on a plane Sunday and is in the western state of Sierra for a week. She still hasn’t gotten licensure from Estacado (months later, we’re nowhere close, actually), so she’s had to take temp jobs out of state. She has licensure in the state of Shoshona, so she can work either in that state or for the federal government anywhere. Her two options were Sierra and Dakota.

One of the more frustrating aspects of our marriage is the sense that the further we get, the further we are from where we want to go. I knew that there would be a tough road during residency, but I thought that was going to be only three years. Then we decided that she was going to pursue a fellowship, which was okay because it was only a year and it wasn’t going to be as bad as residency. Then it turned out that the fellowship was worse than residency. Further, since she wasn’t giving her some of the training outside of Obstetrics that she needed, that meant another fellowship. On top of that, because she got a late start on this fellowship, we would have to wait a year before she got an opportunity for another one.

The consolation there was that she would get some good R&R time in between the fellowships, which she definitely needed. She did get some, which was a good and joyful thing, but before we knew it she had to start going around the country getting re-certified in all the things she didn’t do during this past fellowship and had to start work on getting licensure for Estacado and possibly other states. Then, as part of the effort of getting licensure in Estacado, she had to take a jurisprudence exam to learn about state and federal medical law. Having just taken the test (she got 92%!), she needs to cut her teeth doing some more work so that she won’t be a year out-of-practice when she starts… wherever it is she might start.

I knew that she was going to be doing some temp work, but I had envisioned a couple weeks here and then a couple weeks there. It turns out that the best thing for her career is to do a sustained trip to a single place. We negotiated and came up with a 3-week-on-1-week-off arrangement in Sierra. So basically, after only getting limited time with her due to residency and fellowship, and then limited time because she’s studying for this and that, instead of getting better it’s going to be a long distance relationship for six months or so until we pick up our stakes and move somewhere else for a year, wherein she will be in fellowship again (under less arduous circumstances, we hope and expect) in some other state (either a large city in the Pacific Northwest near Becky, or a rural area in the east near Barry) and then… and then… we’re probably going to have to start talking family (if we decide to go that route).

So this is sort of a big “why me!” whine. But if I can’t whine on a blog, where can I?

At least while she’s doing the temp work she’s going to actually be pulling in something resembling a doctor’s wage.