Day 49

Today we went for a nice walk all the way up Corsi Hill. It was a quick pace at first and then we slowed down going up the hill. The walk was much easier without Olivier stopping every five steps because he sees a rock that he likes. It is surprising how many special rocks he can find. I think he is collecting them to add to our oasis in the shower. Mel is talking about adding grass and maybe we will switch to an organic soap that is safe for plants.

1.) I have colleagues all across Canada that I work with. Over the last year I have become a lot closer to my colleagues in Newfoundland and in Manitoba. I have become friends with people in both sides where we chat about our personal lives as much as we talk about work. Understanding their personal lives makes it easier to understand how they process information and react to things in work as well as it allows me to understand all facets of their personality. As we share personal stories with each other we can build a closer working relationship. The friendships that I have developed with the people is far more important to me than what we have accomplished as a team. The generosity of the people has been more than I could imagine. Contributions to group gifts as well as personal gifts sent to me. Advice on work. Advice on family situations. I am lucky to have these people in my life.

2.) I tease Melanie a lot, but I appreciate her trying to “spark joy in our lives”. Yesterday I mentioned the shower plants and today she mentioned long grass. I am not sure if she meant the shower, but it would be nice to step into the shower and instead of the cold porcelain tiles, some nice soft grass. I am sure that I would sit on the grass and chill. How fun would that be? I love the fact that she thinks of things that bring joy to our household. That is how we ended up with so many servers in the house. Each server sparks joy in a different way. It is also how I end up with so many Arc’teryx jackets. They spark joy. Whenever you buy something and someone questions why you bought it. The answer is, it sparks joy, and you should be filling your life with joy as much as you can.

3.) I received a book from a friend and I started reading it today. The premise is basically push past any boundaries you think you encounter and change your mindset so you can succeed. It seems simple enough, but in practice it is difficult unless you truly believe in it. If your mind can get past the limitations that you set you can push past it. It is an ideology that others have shared. I do not believe in limitations and have managed to overcome things in the past. If things do not work out it does not stress me out as I firmly believe that something will work out. When working in academia and research I believed if we can think of it, we can figure out some way to make it work. This cancer experience is the same thing. It is an experiment that is an opportunity to learn. My mind does not believe that the cancer will win. The treatment will work and my mind will direct my body to adapt and beat it. Going for a walk today as we walked up the hill, I had points in my head where I figured, ok when we get there we will turn around. Once we reached that mark I thought, we can go further. This continued until we made it all the way up the hill and it was not too difficult of a trip. Previous walks the thought of going all the way up was tiring. Today I did not intend to make it all the way, but on the journey I went a little bit more each time. Learning with Dr. Persinger was similar. Once you reached your peak, he would push you a little more and say ok, what are you going to do next. My current manager has the same thought process. You achieved your goal now, what are you going to do next to drive further. Though similar in mindset, Dr. Persinger had decades of experience on how to extract the next level of knowledge. Mel said that when the doctor said I was an exceptional case that it was going to get to my head, another thing that he can excel at. It is not good enough to beat cancer by struggling through it. I intend to get through it with minimal side effects and little impact on my life if possible. It will not dictate what I can or can not do.

Quoc Hao