Non-Medical Spouse Nightmare Journal

PRIVATE | NIGHTMARE JOURNAL

(of a non-medical spouse)

07/04/2025 (She’s Off for Independence Day)

We are at a July 4th BBQ at my good friend Joe’s house. Brian has just been born and I’m showing off pictures of him on my wife Jackie’s phone. The first few pictures are of our infant son, but then as I keep scrolling, there’s intermittently pictures of bowel movements, bloody vomit, and a couple IV drips with medications. And I keep scrolling and it keeps going back and forth between our kids and gory hospital scenes: Brian taking his first steps, then an amputated foot, then Kelly’s first day of school, then an open chest with a beating heart. There’s a small crowd of people now looking at my phone, and no one is phased or uncomfortable but me. The content gets more and more ridiculous: Brian learning how to ride his bike in an operating room where they are doing brain surgery (“Awww, he’s got such good balance, a natural!” comments Joe’s wife, Sandra). Kelly doing a ballet recital in the emergency department trauma bay as EMTs actively do CPR behind her (“Such grace! You must be so proud.” beams Mike). Joe announces that the food is ready, and behind him my wife is manning the grill in her surgical gown, gloves, and loupes. “I hope you’re all hungry!” She brandishes her scalpel like a spatula. Our friends cheer.

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09/30/2025 (She’s Been Practicing her “Morbidity and Mortality” Presentation)

I’m watching my wife give a presentation to all her colleagues in a small conference room. It’s supposed to be a medical presentation, so initially she introduces herself in English, but the slides and the rest of her presentation are in a language I can’t understand. Her colleagues (some of the faces were familiar, coresidents I’d met at a work happy hour or while picking her up from the hospital etc), are all following along, but I can’t figure out what they’re talking about. The next slide in the presentation is a picture of me loading the dishwasher, which my wife normally does in real life because she thinks I do it wrong. My wife pulls out a laser pointer and starts pointing out the organizational scheme of (or from what could I gather, the lack thereof) the dishwasher like an anatomy lesson and people in the audience are whispering and murmuring in agreement. Then she starts pointing the laser pointer at my nose in the photo, and there’s a wave of chuckles from the crowd. Then she uses the laser pointer to point directly at my crotch where I’m standing in the back of the room, and the chuckles turn into howling laughter. I now notice my brother and mom have been sitting in the front row this whole time, and he’s roaring so hard that he can’t catch his breath, while she is shaking her head disappointedly. 

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12/17/2025 (The Winter Play is Tonight)

This time, our daughter Kelly’s in her school production of Matilda, and Jackie promised she would make it but got stuck late in surgery. This has happened before in real life but this time, Kelly is pretty openly upset and throwing a tantrum, and I can’t figure out how to get her to stop, so I call Jackie at work. And suddenly she’s there next to me, but she’s all gowned up and has a team of important looking people in scrubs who are bringing the supplies to do the surgery. The intubated patient is eyes open, strapped to a gurney, smiling and waving like Hannibal Lecter as he’s wheeled down the auditorium aisle. And Jackie says “Fine, you asked me to come, but I can’t be in two places at once, so I’ll just do the surgery here.” And now it’s not a wholesome elementary school production of Matilda, but all of us watching my wife on stage do surgery on her patient and Kelly is in her Matilda wig, also gowned up and handing her the forceps and the retractors. Other parents in the audience are excited because their children are now playing surgical techs and anesthesiologists. There’s a point where blood spurts everywhere and gets all over my daughter who smiles and laughs like it’s nothing. My wife smiles and laughs too, blood all over her face. They finish the surgery and then the patient sits up. A decadent, layered chocolate cake is placed in front of him. He proceeds to eat the whole thing while showing off his gnarly freshly-stitched abdomen. My wife and daughter bow. The curtain closes. Everyone applauds.

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2/13/2026 (She’s on Call for President’s Day Weekend) 

No dream, just phantom pager beeps that wake me up once an hour. Every time I look over, Jackie is sound asleep. 

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05/24/2026 (The Day before Fellowship Match) 

Jackie decides to pursue a fellowship. It’s not clear what kind of fellowship – all I know is that it is ten years long, and the best programs are in Vietnam, Argentina and Subsaharan Africa. Obviously we would have to undergo the match process again so we have no idea where we would move. When I ask her how much it pays, Jackie scoffs and tells me that it is such a rare and prized learning opportunity, most people pay the program for the experience. We also for some reason have three more children to take care of in addition to Brian and Kelly, a dog, and two beloved iguanas that would also need to be factored into the move. I call my employer to ask if there are offices in Vietnam or Africa that I could transfer to if needed, and my boss snorts and hangs up. Then, as I’m trying to figure out the logistics of Argentinian school enrollment and the presence of veterinary care in Africa, a call comes in from a debt collector telling us Jackie’s ten year fellowship is against loan deferment rules. If we didn’t start paying right away, the new interest rate would make our $200k debt from her school loans double in the next two years. I start panicking and looking for Jackie to explain, but when I ask Kelly where she is, she says “Mommy is already matched to Vietnam, we’re supposed to meet her there this afternoon!” And I look around and all of her stuff is gone. She’s left me with the kids, the house, the pets, the bills, and our recently-acquired Honda Odyssey, which promptly explodes into flames.