When Mike's mom, Joan, was completing her nursing training, her parents gave her three glass bottles filled with water. As I was told, each bottle represented a year of grueling training. Emptying a bottle each year was a symbolic countdown to completing her achievement.
Joan then passed on these same bottles to Mike when he started medicine, knowing his 4 years would also be challenging. Based on the division of training, Mike divided up the time into 3 logical components and emptied the bottles throughout the 4 years as he worked through the course requirements, exams, and clinical clerkship.
By second year residency in Internal Medicine (2003-2004), fondly called R2.... we were looking for a way to get through the year. This year as touted as the worst by far in terms of shear number of hours at the hospital coupled with a significant increase in level of responsibility. I had no doubt Mike had the skills-- but could he survive being 'a bag', requiring him to 'get low' every night? (you may need to consult your Mike-ism translations). Would he be consumed by 'no-life-attacks' mid-afternoon or would he consume one too many 'grease-bomb' muffins offered free 'post-call'? Health, sanity, and relationships were all at stake...
We came up with a plan, which was Extreme-Bottle-Emptying. Rather than use three bottles of water, we bought 10 bottles of nice red wine with designs on emptying them (into glasses and enjoying) each month. A highly intensive year required Extreme Measures- increasing the potency of the liquid and frequency of the emptying. Below are 10 consecutive months, as we checked off each and every month:
10 bottles:
after September:
after October:
after December:
after January:
after February:
after April:
after June 30th (the end!):
Mike was diagnosed with a low grade brain tumour in December of R2 year. We continued our wine tasting--but shared our wine, rather than drinking it all ourselves. The wine took on a new purpose, marking time in a new way.
In third year (R3) there was the promise of something called 'home call'-- a mind-blowing, marvelous concept where you could be 'on-call' and 'home' at the same time! Cell phone technology was just becoming more popular so to go one step further, you could actually be on 'home call' and not even be home!! It was just too good to be true.
In our new found free time together, we got married and started our family...
Sarah I remember you talking about Mike being able to be on call at home - you were both pretty excited! These pictures show glimpses of the lovely home you made on King Street .... an amazing place that I think I remember being passed to you through some of Mike's friends? The calibre of that apartment speaks to the kind of friend Mike was .... it was a cream of the crop kind of place and you would only pass it along to someone who fit that bill ! Your bottle tradition is inspiring ... a pensive moment for all of us to think about how we don't mark time and celebrate the signficance of the day to day. Thank you.
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