This morning there was an F1 race on and I had to bake bread as well. I need to plan things a bit better. Last night I stayed up a bit later hanging out with Melanie because it sparked joy. Since she distracted me, I forgot to take a pill and my sleep was not the best. The key message here is be careful of loved ones stealing your energy to spark joy in their life. This is nefarious plan on her side so she could nag me this morning that I should have rested or taken my medicine.
This resulted in me getting up at 7am to get the bread started, but on the bright side McLaren came in third, so it was well worth it. By now I should realize that when I do not sleep well it has a huge impact on the next day. I think I will learn this lesson during Phase 3. That is the last round of chemo. We are entering Phase 2 soon. I think it is going to be an exciting time! I have never had the opportunity to live without major organs, so it should be interesting to see how that is.
Today I am going to write about opportunities that have been granted to me and my appreciation for having them. I also noticed that when fatigued I tend to make more spelling errors and grammatical errors. My dearest sister loves to point out when I make mistakes and she wants to edit all of my mistakes.
1.) When I started working at the hospital I was coming out of Academia and research. It is something that I have a passion for, but it is not necessarily the most healthy career as it can be high stress and I tend to become absorbed in it. Every time I read an article or see something, I have 10 ideas generated from it to advance it. As a researcher this is a fantastic trait. As a husband and father it is not. I use to wake up at 2 or 3 am because I had an idea in my head and I would start programming or designing something. This is not something that you can do when you have a family. One of my bosses at the hospital recognized my love and desire for research, as they enjoyed it as well. They provided me opportunities to expand our department by dabbling in research projects with other groups. We had went to visit a group down in Toronto to see if we could collaborate. It did not work out, but I appreciate that they brought me along to see if we could start something with that group. Later on we did successfully start a collaboration with HSNRI and I assisted them in various predictive modeling projects. This is how the website emerged. I kept on getting outside requests and more work that was far outside the scope of what the initial collaboration was so then I started Mach Research. I appreciate the collaborations that came from it and the opportunity to work with other groups. It is not something that I would have expected from what my defined role was.
2.) In high school, I ran track & field. It was fun and the people were nice and not too serious. We were in it for fun and did not necessarily care whether we did well or not. Eventually I came back and started coaching track & field there. At the time, the principal of the school paid for me to be a certified coach was nice as it seems now that this is no longer the norm. It took a couple of years to go through all of the certifications and to obtain all of the hours but I eventually became the head coach of the program and we had some success. At this time a new deacon came to the school and started helping out with track and field and the two of us ran the program as the previous teacher was not interested anymore. The deacon and I got along well and ran the program around people we liked to have around as opposed to talent. We taught the basic skills and technically our kids were sound and had great form. Some lacked talent, but they tried hard and looked good coming in 7th and 8th place. That is all that matters, just look good. The deacon use to have an RV that we would take to the track meets and it was what we were known for. It provided us an opportunity to feed the kids better food and to give them their own space at the track where they could hang out without getting into trouble. A lot of athletes from this time I have kept in touch with and I appreciate watching them grow up. To me they are still high school students when I see them and it is nice to see their growth as humans. They are all just as pleasant as when they were in high school. I have a lot of fond memories of all the track meets.
Even though I attended Catholic schools throughout my life, I have never been very religious. Spending so much time with the deacon led to philosophical discussions about theology and science. I appreciate being able to talk to someone that did not view the two as diametrically opposed. The deacon surprisingly has ties throughout my whole life. His wife’s father was the principal of my first school. He was a great principal and I have fond memories of my time in elementary school. For every major event in my life after I met Melanie where we had a religious ceremony, the deacon was the one that did it. At our wedding, he presided over the ceremony and since he knew us so well it was far more personal than a priest or someone else could provide. Unfortunately, he threw holy water on me during the ceremony and it burned painfully. Once the kids were born and were to be baptized he was there as well. I would not have had the opportunity to be reacquainted with the family if it was not for track & field. It is a lot more meaningful for the messages coming from someone who knows you and can tailor the message.
I believe in connections. He randomly decided to call me once because we had not chatted for a while. Unknown to him, he happened to be camping right next to my in-laws at a campground. We went to visit both of them at that time as we were not camping with either.
3.) I have spoken of my ties to a lot of my childhood friends and the relationships I have with them. They are family to me. I have a whole series of friends whose families have integrated me in. In this instance my best friend was visiting me when I was living in another city. He was there to attend a concert with some other friends. I was not planning on attending this concert so did not have a ticket. It was a band that I enjoyed but for whatever reason I did not have a ticket. Prior to the concert starting my best friend decided to get rid of his ticket with his friends which was near the stage and get two cheaper tickets so I would have the opportunity to attend with him. I was appreciative and we ended up getting tickets sitting down further away. Regardless of whether he enjoyed those seats or would have preferred the one he gave up, he was willing to sacrifice so I had the opportunity to enjoy it with him. I was going to just hang out with him and then leave as they were staying at a hotel and not with me. The concert was awesome and it is another instance of how he provided me an opportunity that I would probably not have had. Without a second thought or hesitation, he thought of how could I be included. These are the types of people that I have in my life, and what makes this adventure easy to deal with.
Quoc Hao