A couple months ago, I announced to my personal friends on Instagram that I was going to start blogging again. I say again, because for those of you that don’t know me, I blogged for several months of residency as “DrBCulp”. I discussed patient experiences, life as a resident, etc. Then, I started spending all that extra time with the man that would become my husband and the father of our baby girl. A LOT has happened in those 6 years. I got married, got two new dogs (to total FIVE), finished residency, ran off to Utah (and therefore, spent a year trying to do private practice while long distance with my relatively new husband), came back to Texas, and started to do TRAUMA surgery (of all things), did a surgical critical care fellowship (all but three months of which I was pregnant), had our beautiful baby girl, took 7 weeks of maternity leave, and now my husband is finishing that same fellowship! I’m out of breath just typing it all out. (And if you could only imagine the several years before that–you know, college, medical school, internship, residency…)
I guess you could say I’m older and MAYBE wiser than when I was blogging last time. I’m not sure sure about the wiser part, but I like to think I would do some things differently on this side of things. I can DEFINITELY say, I cuss more like a sailor than I ever did–trauma surgery can do that to a person. I apologize now for foul language that may come up in the my blog posts from time to time–it can be especially bad when I’m really passionate about something (both good and bad). Most of all though, my priorities have drastically changed since the last time I wrote a blog post. Six years ago, I was focused on me, my career, and my dating life that was winding down quite quickly. I mentioned “me” first, because that was exactly my number one priority. These days, I’d say “me” is my number two on my best days, number four or five on most. Being a working mom is hard. Being a trauma surgeon mom is hard as hell–even more so when you’re a married to a trauma surgeon dad. (That’s right, not just a two physician family, but a two trauma surgeon family.) Honestly, what the $*&! were we thinking? Don’t lie–you asked yourself that too.
Going back to work was a million times harder than I expected it to be. No one warned me that I’d love being a mom so much. No one told me how rewarding it would be to be a mom–not even my own mother. (Although, I’ll admit she knew that one of the best relationships of my life was finally in the making.) I’ll discuss that working mom bit pretty often in the blog. If you’re reading this, you know that Mom Guilt is a real thing (and deserves to be capitalized as such). You know that FaceTime goodnight stories, photos from the nanny, and begging that the baby doesn’t walk to today (because you’re stuck at work) are REAL THINGS that provoke REAL FEELINGS.
If you follow along, you’ll join me on a journey of finding a new side-gig as a physician (will it just be this blog, investments, or some other crazy idea?). You’ll join me in debating “part-time” work vs “full-time”, when and where to travel, the ups and downs of becoming a first time mom (and advice that I have–mostly of which is tell everyone else to screw off), the adventures of eventually bringing in baby number two, building a home (yep, THAT is also happening in the midst of the current chaos), and I’ll tell you about all the neat things and the friends that have helped me get to this point.
With that, welcome to Doctor Enough where I hope to prove to myself (and to you), that I am enough of a Mom, enough of a friend, enough of a daughter, enough of a wife, enough of a physician, and mostly, that I am enough…period.
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