When I chat with Mel and my friends they are disheartened that something like this can happen to me. Mel articulated it saying that we try and do good, give back and be helpful. I am ok with this happening to me as opposed to someone else that I know. I have a strong network and a village supporting me. There is the saying that it takes a village to raise a child. When you are too tired to cook, someone else will jump in and help out. When you are too tired to take care of the kids, someone jumps in. This was one of the key decisions that influenced Mel and I to move back and live in Sudbury. I had a job offer to move to the middle of nowhere of Finland after we got married but it would have meant us being isolated without knowing anyone. I would have worked long days and Mel would be in a town where I do not know if people knew how to speak English. She is resilient and would probably pick up the language quickly, but we also had friends who raised kids without any support and you do not get any time off. I have a lot of respect for people who go through all of that on their own. This is an annoyance in life, but it is not insurmountable. Just a small bout of cancer, an opportunity to build resilience. I have lived a life full of awesome memories and experienced a lot of things that others may not have had to. Through it all I did it with friends and family who were always there to support me and always will be. I have the village supporting me now as well. I have so many people that will come help me out with whatever I want at the drop of a hat if I ask. This is why I am with it being me going through this. I receive so much love and support from everyone I would rather this happen to me than someone who does not have such a strong support system. This is happening to me because I do not want to live a normal boring life. It reminds me of Bob Ross when he was going through some hard times and he was positive.
“Gotta have opposites dark and light, light and dark in a painting. It’s like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now.” – Bob Ross
It makes me appreciate a lot of little things a lot more. There are a lot of people that go through a lot of hardships in their life and they need to do it alone. I am fortunate that I do not need to. Whenever the opportunity arises where I can help out a friend I will always do it. This is what I have surrounded myself with and I think that in times like this, when things are dark I will always have people come with a light if I remain in the dark for too long. Small arguments and things seem so trivial when you go through things like this. I make sure that I take time to always focus on the positive things. Since Mel does not read this I think that I will start saying one positive thing that she has done for me every single day to show gratitude. I did this with my team at Vale and I actually spoke about it at a conference with how to incorporate principles of human factors into leadership. I should practice it more often, especially at times like this when I know Mel is going through some sadness.
For God knows what reason, one of my dearest friends I did not tell them about any of this. I had thought that most of my close friends knew, and yesterday I realized that we had inadvertently not told someone. It is amusing because they still reference me from my high school nickname and I am part of the family, “Uncle Crack”. He mentioned that we grew up on punk rock and he stayed up catching up on everything that I had written. We instilled some of those beliefs into our kids. I think that this helps me get through some of this. I do not care what literature says about my case, I will walk my own path if I do not like what has been set forth.
I just got back from my appointment with my surgeon and it went as expected. He explained why he was reluctant to do the surgery and discussed what is the worst case scenario and what can happen. The primary reason is that he does not want to make my life worse in case it does not go well seeing as I do not have any pain or anything now. His biggest concern was that we know where the cancer is, yet on the PET scan it barely registers on the PET and there are other areas that do not light up showing cancer. He mentioned that on the PET scans there were signs of potential cancer on my stomach, but during the scope there was nothing seen. This makes things more challenging as there is no clear path on what to do. It was suggested that I get fluid extracted after taking an ultrasound to see if there is enough fluid to extract. They can then do a test and see if it is in the abdomen fluid. If it is then there is not a lot of reason to go ahead with the surgery as it is wide spread. Mel then asked can we not do these two in parallel and he said we can. The earliest that we can have surgery is 4-6 weeks. We discussed that at this point 4-6 weeks is trivial as it seems to be slow growing and it is not going to triple in size in that amount of time. That is the game plan as of now. Wait for further tests to determine the extent of this as we are still in the dark. This was the best case scenario as he has agreed to the procedure even though he is hesitant.
He mentioned that when we originally spoke that we knew that it was going to come back at some point and he re-iterated that even if it seemed localized that at some point it would return. So far I have lived far longer than he expected and I am doing much better than what he thought throughout this. It was mentioned that most people with a case like mine would not survive this long. My case is complex and I have beat all of the odds so far. I think that this is what annoyed Mel the most. So far I have not met expectations, so why are we talking about this like I am a normal case. I should be dead by now and I am not, so why are we focusing on what occurs with normal people. We have acknowledged that I have been the exception so far, so remove what we know and we will deal with the rest as it comes up. I think that right now I have accepted the fact that it might be wide spread and I do not care. So what if it is. Just because it is wide spread it does and it is palliative does not mean that I am going to die soon. If I accepted that then I would have succumbed to this already. They game plan will be to be as aggressive as we can be and do what we can with what we know. this will most likely go with physical surgery as it seems the less dangerous of everything and will provide the most clarity. The issue is that there is more waiting now. When the surgery occurs I will know upon waking up whether things are good or not. If the surgery is less than hour then it is widespread, but it is possible that they still remove the known cancer as that is what Mel asked him to do. It is a decision that will occur at the time of surgery.
I have beat the odds in so many instances so far and have made it this far. My case is unique and I should not be judged along the same lines as other cases. The complexity of my case is higher because everything that they have expected to happen has not. One of my oncologists mentioned that he does not like the unknown and that cases like mine are stressful because they are operating in the dark. I laughed and said that this was exciting as it is challenging and we just need to be creative on what we will do to overcome it. Why be simple when we can be complex. I know that I prefer challenging work over simple work. I guess most doctors would prefer simple and cure their patient as opposed to complex and not knowing if you can help the patient. This is a learning experience for everyone and it will help future cases. This is really simple to beat. Just be awesome.
Quoc Hao