My family’s religion is Buddhist even though no one practices it. My aunt use to as did my grandmother but no one in our family does. My brother is actually baptized Catholic I do believe. One of the beliefs in Buddhism though is rebirth or reincarnation. Once upon a time there was a psychic who visited the lab and he was scary accurate at times. The interesting thing is that we measured his brain activity and when he made an accurate reading he attributed it to a voice in his head. If you were religious you would say it was God or an Angel. There was a distinctive brain signature when this all occurred. He told me that in the last I was a general and that Mel and I had matched up previously as well. Some of the things he said about me was amusing as only few people would have known the actual correct responses at the time and they were not things that could easily be found. They were not generic but very specific incidences that happened. I am not sure if I believe in rebirth or reincarnation but in Buddhism it is tied to karma. This continuous stream gets transferred as you move through this cycle. It could be considered similar to Christianity and souls going to Heaven or Hell. Actions in your pas and current life will impact future rebirths. More positive actions will result in a better future life, while negative actions are less favorable. There is a lot more tied into it, but it makes me think of people’s actions and motives. Most major religions praise good actions and helping out others, but people still struggle with it.
I know that when I struggle with things people come out of the woodworks to help me out. An old friend of mine from high school wants to come visit to help out with things. He wanted to come visit because he did not want me to be alone. I am grateful for all of the positive karma that i receive from family, friends and colleagues. It is a cycle that I hopefully can maintain. When I first told one of my friends at the hospital that I had cancer and that I had people helping me out in the background they mentioned that I had a lot of people that loved me and wished me well. I am lucky to have these people in my life and how they will put aside their stress and problems to help me out. When you go through serious illness it puts everything into perspective. Trivial things no longer matter and you appreciate things a lot more.
Our new range has 2 knobs that are not working properly and the sales person that we had has been fantastic to deal with. He takes care of all sorts of things for us and will arrange servicing. I appreciate this type of care as it would make me want to deal with him more in the future. Mel excels in talking to people and getting them to help us out. Everyone at some point should work in customer service and have to deal with customers calling in. I worked at a call center and you are required to follow a script to help customers fix things. I am sure that you would be shocked to hear that I went through the motions and did not adhere to the rules. They had advanced tools that you could use to diagnose the problems, but you also had to interpret them and do things manually. I would follow the script while diagnosing things and fixing it in the background. There was one time where it got me into slight problem as there was no readily available solution to the problem a customer was having. It was a bit more technical but I walked the customer how to do it and told them that this was not an authorized or approved solution but it would work. They called in the next day and no one else could help them and I did not work. They spoke with my supervisor and he said that what I recommended would probably work but no one there has the expertise to help them. I did not get in trouble for it or anything. My supervisor said next time in the notes write out in details how I could help them. When I call into call centres and I am upset I always preface it by telling the agents that I am quite annoyed with the situation but not annoyed at them and that I know that they need to follow a script. It makes things go faster and they will often escalate to higher levels of support faster for me. Be nice to others as you never know what they are going through. No matter what issues that I am going through, there may be others that have it worse. Mel is probably the only one that will really see me when I struggle as I do not want to burden others. Mel signed up for it when we got married. For better or for worse. I want to make sure she gets practice on the worse part. She is a saint for the patience that she has.
I have yet to hear when I am starting my treatment. Tomorrow I will send a message to my oncologist for follow up. I think he said Tuesday or Wednesday to start. I want to get it started so I know what adjustments I will need to do. The baseline has been set now and I am slowly recovering but I would like to understand how radiation will put a wrinkle into things. I remember when Chadwick Boseman died and it was revealed that he had cancer. He was losing weight and did not tell people he had cancer and went through life trying to be a positive influence on others. Visiting kids in the hospital and going through life as normal as he could. People have seen me lose weight over time and they are concerned. Last night I ate a bit too much and threw up. Olivier heard me and told Mel about it. Clearly we have not taught Olivier that snitches get stitches. Mel was obviously concerned for me, so she took out her anger on Olivier and berated him for snitching. Or she yelled at me. I laughed at him as he has learned that I tend to do foolish things and both him and Xavier will happily betray me when it comes to my health. In any matter of pulling a fast one on Mel they will always have my back. For my health, they snitch on me.
I slept well last night, but fatigue still occurs if I push myself too much physically. Mentally is not as draining. I just need to make sure I do not push myself too much during the day. I have to get my own meals and water as opposed to having Mel deliver it to me. I have been eating more and can now schedule in 2 meals in the morning, 2 in there afternoon and then 3 in the evenings. The key is soft food like yogurt or pudding at the end of the night as neither of those sit too heavily for me.
Quoc Hao