Reflection on My Birthday

In the past, I usually didn’t celebrate my birthday. It was just another day. However, I took my birthday more seriously after being diagnosed with lung cancer. I not only buy a cake to celebrate each birthday with my husband and with my children online, but more importantly, I reflect on the past year’s experience and re-adjust the course of my actions for the following year.

My birthday is this month. I had a good year in 2020-2021. My lung cancer remains stable, and my physical and mental health has improved; my advocacy goes to a new height and my leisure time is quite relaxing and memorable.

Proud of my health improvements

Last September, I started to practice Ping Shuai Gong (PSG, 平甩功), a Chinese soft martial art (Qi Guong, 气功) and wrote an article about my experience three months later. Now, after one year of practice, I’m absolutely “addicted” to it and practice it religiously. I practice in the morning getting up from bed and at night, too, following 15 minutes before bed meditation. As a result, I never felt stiff joints and painful muscles, which were the main problems before. Also, it improves my sleeping habit dramatically. I also focus on the left hemisphere of my brain, where cancer metastatic there. Last year, in two separate time instants, my brain surgeon had surprised that my brain tumors had shrunk. Of course, without targeted therapy and the care of my medical team, it’s not possible, but I think that PSG plays some role here.

Another change is that the brain functions better than before in terms of memory and multi-tasking. I’m the unlucky patient that I have severe brain fog that I lost my memory badly, and I couldn’t count to twenty at the beginning. Another problem is I couldn’t multi-tasking, and I got perplexed. This past year, the most significant improvement was in the above two points of my brain. I think it’s because of my active use of the brain. I was reading non-stop about everything related to (lung) cancer.

I constantly ask myself if I could gain my lost brain capability ever? Is it due to six-year recovery alone or active brain activity to make the brain functioning better? I haven’t figured it out yet, but my advice is to keep your brain busy for the patients who suffer from severer chemo brain. Sooner or later, brain function will improve.

My advocacy is at a new height

After three years’ trial and error of different advocating activities, it came to me that it was time I should narrow down my advocacy at the end of last year. Early this year, I was in the International Association for Studies of Lung Cancer (IASLC) program to be trained as a Patient Research Advocate. Almost the same time, I was in the training program of grant review for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Conquer Cancer Foundation for six months. Now, I’m appointed to the same grant committee for three years.

Later, I managed to be on two more grant review committees of Canadian cancer organizations. Together with the last committee of Lung Cancer Canada, I’m on four grant review committees to review the cancer research proposals. All the grant reviews last between October 2021 and February 2022.

Grant review is not new to me. Ten years before I was on sick leave, I was heavily involved in the engineering grant review for the grant agencies of the Canadian government. New I will focus on the grant review of cancer research. I’m pretty excited about these opportunities.

My self-improving and self-growing journey

I worked as a professor for 20 years before I got lung cancer. Another ten years before it, I went to universities to do all degrees and post-doctoral studies before settling down in my current professor job. Meanwhile, my husband and I raised three beautiful children. I can describe my life with one word: busy. I never got the opportunity to reflect and reinvent myself.

Having lung cancer allowed me to reflect and re-think my career and life. It also gave me a second chance to live my life. I urged for self-improving and self-growing. Therefore, I took two online courses, “LifeBook Online” and “LifeBook Mastery Bootcamp”, early this year.^1,2 It’s offered by Jon and Missy, a couple of self-made millionaires. I view intellectual life, health and fitness, social life, especially characters, and spiritual life differently now. To a certain extent, these two courses opened my eyes.

Looking ahead to the upcoming year

I have a good year for 2020-2021. My highest priority is my health, followed by my advocacy for (lung) cancer. I’m very serious about my self-improvement journey. As I settle down to this post-cancer and COVID-19 pandemic era, travel around the world is the next on my agenda.