Open-Heart Surgery - The Easy Part
This is a continuation of my series of blogs about becoming parents and being the parents of a medical baby. If you haven’t read the previous blogs about this subject, please consider checking them out.
Part One: https://www.damonwchen.com/blog/becoming
Part Two: https://www.damonwchen.com/blog/tranquility-before-despair
Part Three: https://www.damonwchen.com/blog/very-sad-day
Part Four: https://www.damonwchen.com/blog/medical-baby-djs-first-couple-of-months
Six thirty in the morning. I hear noises coming from our baby monitor. It’s our son DJ, awake, singing and patiently awaiting his parents. Boy did he adapt quickly to his new routine. A couple of months ago, Ishtar was still a stay at home mom and DJ was waking up around eight in the morning. Now, our day start an hour or more earlier. Ishtar has resumed her career in physical therapy and DJ is attending daycare five days a week. The first four days of daycare were difficult anxiously leaving our son as he cried hysterically while the classroom door closed. However, on the fifth day, it was like a switch flipped. DJ walked up to his classroom, knocked on the door with his little fist and greeted his teacher with a big, warm hug. He happily waved and said goodbye as we left. We couldn’t help but be proud of our little warrior. He’s been excited to go to school ever since. This is the normal that we expected when DJ was born and the normal that we have long awaited since DJ’s open heart surgery when he was just two and a half months old.
Exactly two years ago today, October 1st, 2021, DJ had open heart surgery. He was scheduled to have his surgery first thing in the morning. Because of that, he was not allowed to drink any milk all throughout the evening. Before we could even get a cup of coffee, we were told there were a couple of higher priority surgeries that needed to be done before it was DJ’s turn. We kept pulling out our phones to check the time. I can’t remember time ever passing this slowly. Every couple of hours, we were given an update that it was pushed back another couple of hours. Morning came and went. Ishtar and I were getting frustrated that DJ wasn’t allowed to eat and the lack of communication. DJ just patiently lay in bed sucking on his pacifier. If only he were still this patient today. The nurses came by around three in the afternoon and brought us to the surgery preparation room. We spoke to three or four different people and answered what seemed to be the same same series of questions each time. About one hour later, we kissed our baby boy and said a prayer for him. With that, he was wheeled off to surgery. Ishtar and I held each other tightly as tears rolled down our cheeks. DJ was now in the capable hands of Dr. Feins.
The sun was still out as we walked out of the hospital, we were desperate for some fresh air and to have a meal that wasn’t prepared in the hospital. We strolled around the streets that I walked every day in high school, familiar but also strangely foreign. Has it really been fourteen years already? We walked by Avenue Louis Pasteur and there she was, Boston Latin School, just as I remember it. The Longwood Medical District was a big part of my life. I was born here, went to high school here, made lifelong friends here, laughed here, cried here, and even now, it continues to be part of my story. Knowing the surgery would take hours, we took our time roaming the streets and getting dinner, a much needed respite, if only for a few hours, from everything we had been through since DJ was born.
Throughout the evening, we received phone calls alerting us of all major milestones in the surgery. I picked up every call with great anticipation and apprehension. Once we were alerted that the surgery was complete, Dr. Feins met us in the surgery recovery wing and brought us to a family common room. As we sat down, I noticed Dr. Feins was radiating with confidence. The surgery was a resounding success. A deep sigh of relief swept over Ishtar and I. We couldn’t help but smile and thanked Dr. Feins for his outstanding work. It was about nine in the evening now. We continued waiting in the common room with other families eager to see their child, with intrigued eyes behind face masks as our eyes met in passing glances, no one courageous enough to strike up a conversation, even though we all probably could’ve benefited greatly from it.
As we entered our son’s room, it looked like almost every inch of his tiny body was hooked up to hospital gear. His face was swollen from the surgery and he was under anesthesia. There was a complex mix of happiness and sadness seeing him like this. Of course I was happy that his surgery went well and his VSD was now repaired. But there was a deep sadness and disbelief still that this was our reality. Why him? I slowly opened my mouth, unsure of what to say or that he would even hear or understand me. “DJ we’re here and we are so proud of you,” I said quaveringly. I can still feel all the emotions as I write this. We spent some time with him and held his hands as we thanked God for helping keep our boy safe in surgery and guiding all the members of his healthcare team in helping take care of him. We were eager to see him wake up and hold him in our arms again.
The next day, DJ woke up in the early evening. He was groggy at first due to the pain medication. Ishtar and I carefully took turns holding our baby boy. About an hour later, he was rabid as he ingurgitated his first meal post surgery with tears, discomfort and vigor. Upon finishing his meal, his face was dreamy and satiated and as he drifted back to sleep. For the next week, we repeated the pattern of offering milk by mouth every three hours followed up by using the NG tube for what he didn’t finish. DJ was mostly crib bound so we brought him some of his favorite toys. Ishtar and I took turns staying with DJ in the room and sleeping in one of the available hospital hotel rooms, leaving his side only to obtain sustenance. As the days went on, DJ’s oral intaking wasn’t increasing. However, he was getting more and more energy and getting back to being himself. Since his oral intake was not improving, the nurses began teaching us how to use a pump that we would take home with us to feed him through the NG tube. This was something I was afraid of and sure enough, exactly one week after surgery, on a Friday evening in the heart of Boston rush hour traffic, we were discharged from the hospital.
Moving a few feet at a time for an hour and a half, we were finally in our home sweet home. Looking back on it, it’s hard to believe all of this only took eleven days. We were exhausted and longing for our own shower and bed. Whatever routine we built prior to going to the hospital, we would have to start over, this time with the NG tube and pump. The doctors set an expectation for us that post surgery, DJ’s lungs wouldn’t be bogged down and he was going to be a new baby. They expected him to start feeding orally better and better every day and be off the NG tube in a matter of days or weeks. But as the days went on, the light at the end of the tunnel just seemed to be getting dimmer and further away.
The Identity Crisis of being Asian American
Hello everyone. The continuation DJ’s early life and life as a parent to a medical baby is still coming. I promise. However, I read a very powerful book by Charles Yu called Interior Chinatown a couple of months ago and my recent travels abroad in the Philippines have me reflecting about my own experience on nationality vs. ethnicity. I hope you enjoy!
Where are you from? Boston. But where are you really from… This is something that I’ve heard more times that I can count.
It’s the mid 90s. I’m in elementary school. Kids are running around the playground. I hear someone shout ching chung fung. I don’t know what discrimination is, but I knew they were referring to me or my one other ethnic Chinese classmate. I didn’t feel upset or sad, but I didn’t feel good.
Elementary school me, loves sports, particularly basketball and baseball. My parents tell me Chinese people are not meant to do athletics, that we have to study hard and get good grades. From grade one to six, I didn’t excel academically. Parental disappointment towards my grades. I felt shame.
It’s 2001, Ichiro Suzuki took over Major League Baseball, becoming an All-Star, Rookie of the Year and American League MVP in his debut season. For the first time in my life, there was a glimmer of pride to being Asian.
Still 2001, Michelle Branch takes the music industry by storm with her major label debut album, The Spirit Room. Her music videos play over and over again on MTV and VH1. I scream to my mom, “She looks Asian! She looks Asian!” Starting to see people that look like me in popular media.
Still 2001. I’m in middle school. I’m called “damn Chan” frequently by one of my classmates in a playful way. I didn’t know how to react, so I just stayed quiet. I started to despise my ethnicity.
It’s 2002, Yao Ming is drafted into the National Basketball Association. For the first time, there is pride in being Chinese. But I was quickly reminded that being Asian in America was still a punchline as various athletes and analysts mispronounce his name and mock him with martial arts cries.
Still 2002. My family and I take a month long trip to China. I’m referred to as the American and called “jook-sing,” a term that is given to Western born Chinese children. Chinese elders want Western born Chinese children to have pride in their ethnicity, but still brandish them with a slang term that reminds them that they are not the same. I feel outcast by my own ethnic group. I’m not Chinese enough to be Chinese. But I’m also “different” in the eyes of most of my American peers. I don’t belong.
It’s the mid 2000s. I’m in high school. It’s the first time I’ve had more students of Asian descent around me. I don’t feel as out of place. But the damage was done, I didn’t want to be Chinese, didn’t want to be judged by my appearance. The active outgoing boy became shy.
Still high school. I start taking martial arts thinking I need to learn to protect myself. One of my kung-fu brothers goes to my high school. He’s two school years above me, but we have gym class together. We are sparring. The gym teachers don’t seem to mind. We continue sparring. At the end of gym class, a classmate who I didn’t even interact with runs up to me and playfully picks me up screaming like Bruce Lee. I just give an ingenuine smile.
It’s April 2004. Tragedy strikes. My friend dies. Comfort is found with friends. Inconsolable by family. Time spent at home locked in my room, deep thoughts, deep depression. What is the meaning of life?
Revelation. My departed friend always lived unapologetically as herself and cared very little what others thought of her. I take on this way of life. I want to make her proud. I am reborn.
It’s the late 2000s. I’m in college. I major in Communications, taking many classes that address of subject of bias in entertainment and social media. I rediscover my heritage and minor in Chinese. Two of my best friends are caucasians that I met in Chinese class. We study Chinese, watch Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski lead the New England Patriots and order from the local Chinese take out restaurant, Wing Wong. I discover who I am.
However, just because you know who you are and are comfortable and proud of it, doesn’t mean society will accept that.
It’s early 2010s, the United States has a black president in President Barack Obama. I feels like the times are changing. But politically correct culture and color blind rhetoric takes over entertainment, social media and the workplace. A Vice President at my company, a caucasian man, tells me that he feels like a minority because caucasian males are the only group of people that “don’t receive special treatment.” I’m left pondering this statement to this day.
It’s 2020, COVID-19 has shut down most of the world. The President of the United States blames China. Asians all around the world are victims of assault. Looking over my shoulder everywhere I go, nervous even at the voting booth.
It’s summer 2021, my interracial son, DJ, is born. Two of my close friends also have interracial sons. I hope their futures are easier than what I experienced.
It’s spring 2022, Ishtar brings DJ to a playground at the Yentile Farm Recreational Facility in Wilmington, MA. As soon as my Asian wife and baby enter the playground, the caucasian parents grab their kids and scatter. This makes Ishtar feel uncomfortable but she puts on a brave face for DJ to have fun at the playground. At not even 1 year old, my son has experienced racism from adults. Will things ever change?
It’s spring 2023, a few days ago on Bohol Island in the Philippines. We arrive at Quinale Beach Bar. A local peddler at the beach speaks in Tagalog trying to sell me something. Damon: “I don’t speak Tagalog.” Local man: Now in English, “Where are you from?” Damon: “I’m American.” Local man, making circles around his face: “You look Chinese.”
Your experiences make you who you are, not how you look or the color of your skin. You will be reminded of your appearance. But you have to acknowledge that people are sometimes going to judge you that way, intentionally or unintentionally. In order to become the truest you, one must embrace their entire being, understand how and why people may judge you, and welcome the challenge to take those judgments head on and show that you are more than just your appearance.
P.S. There is actually a really cool lecture by Dr. Sam Richards of Penn State University called Asian Cool that is available on Youtube that talks about how perception of Asians in America is subconscious. I highly recommend checking it out if this subject interests you.
Thank you for reading!
The Unexpected Journey - Open-Heart Surgery
It was half past two in the morning. Driving through a slushy storm, we arrived at Logan Airport. It was dark with people sparsely spread out around the check-in area, no doubt eagerly awaiting their flights. We arrived three hours early to the airport to catch our flight to the Philippines, a trip that has been in the making since Ishtar and I first met years ago. I didn’t actually know that the check in area of Logan Airport actually closed. The clock continued to tick as we were told the check in area would open shortly after three in the morning. Every minute past three felt like an eternity. Finally the check-in hosts showed up and began to usher folks into an orderly line. It was a good thing we arrived early and able to get close to the front of the line. I could just hear the tick-tock in my head as the three working agents meticulously helped each customer, much to my angst. As I looked behind me, I couldn’t help but think about the horde of what looked like hundreds of other passengers and how long they might have to wait to be checked in. With a little difficulty checking in our bags due to the bag tagging machine malfunctioning for our agent, having our bags inspected by TSA, we finally reached our gate, as boarding had already begun. But we made it. Over thirty hours later, we made it to the Philippines and the smile on Ishtar’s face as we landed, everything we had been through to get to this point, it was worth it. After DJ woke us up at three in the morning for the second day in a row, with roosters doing their best cock-a-doodle-doo in the farm next to the house we are staying in, I can’t help but reflect how I got here.
The last time I felt this tired with lack of sleep was almost 20 months ago to the date, when DJ was born. Previously, I wrote a blog called Medical Baby - DJ’s First Couple of Months. I wrote about DJ’s first two and a half months of life, after his stint in the NICU. DJ did his best feeding and was developing right on schedule all the expected baby milestones, every one leading to a cheering ovation like that of winning a championship. He was a very determined little dude. Things suddenly changed when seemingly out of nowhere, we are asked to be admitted to the hospital again.
Ever since the start of the pandemic and the lock down in Massachusetts in March of 2020, I was fortunate enough to work remotely. In the 2 weeks leading up to DJ being admitted to the hospital again, I had returned to my remote work, knowing that I would need to save some FMLA time for post surgery if it were to come to that. Then suddenly, on September 28th, 2021, we were being asked to go to Boston Children’s Hospital for inpatient care. I made all the necessary arrangements to be away from work again and we packed our things for what we thought could be a longer hospital stay.
As we were admitted to the hospital, we were given a small room and prepped for the evening. A nurse helped put in DJ’s new NG tube. And just like that, we lost control of the rhythm we were able to build in our time at home. We were given a strict hospital feeding schedule again, feeding at specific intervals and specific amounts per interval. We were to offer DJ the bottle by mouth and use the NG tube to put the remaining amount that he was unable to finish through the NG tube. The room we were given was small however and I would need to leave Ishtar and DJ in the hospital much to my dismay.
DJ went from eating very well by mouth to being reliant on the tube in a matter of a couple of days. While we were in the hospital, they were able to pull in DJ’s open-heart surgery to October 1st. We knew DJ was struggling to gain weight despite showing that he was eating better in the week leading up to surgery, but we didn’t expect everything to escalate so quickly especially since his surgery was originally scheduled for October 15th. Our newborn baby boy was going to have open-heart surgery to repair his VSD.
While I was nervous about the surgery, I was hopeful as the doctors basically set an expectation that DJ would do a complete 180 post surgery. Little did I know, surgery was the easiest part of the process. Many months after the surgery, DJ was still absolutely reliant on the NG tube, but that is a story for another blog. Through some untapped perseverance, many long nights, tears and meltdowns, we have come a long way as a family to the point where we live a mostly normal life now. The trials and tribulations of life make all the wonderful and tender moments ever more special. It is not the trials and tribulations, but the wonderful and tender moments that should define who we are. You are what you value. And this could be not be more true than the feelings I have as I write this now.
2022 - A Retrospective
Happy New Year’s Eve Everyone. I know it’s been a while since I posted. A lot has happened since the last time I posted back in July. But I’m back now and hope to post at least once a month moving forward. I will be continuing DJ’s story but this will be a more reflective blog about all the things that happened in 2022 and the things that I am thankful for.
2022 really was a tale of 2 very different halves of the year. In the first half of 2022, DJ was still on an NG tube post surgery, I was studying for a career change into Product, I started this blog, planning our overdue Wedding Ceremony and the everyday stresses of having a medical baby for the first half of the year. DJ being on the NG tube was a constant thought on my mind to the point where leaving the house was a challenge. It’s challenging enough to have all the baby necessities leaving the house. Add on top of that, spare feeding tube, stickers to secure the NG tube, NG tube pump, feeding supplies and milk, it was really hard for us to get out for more than 2-3 hours at a time without his next feed being on our minds. But sure enough, at his own pace, DJ continued to grow and continued to progress in his oral feeding. I am beyond thankful for the folks at Growing Independent Eaters who worked with us to wean DJ off his NG tube. We were able to wean him off the tube in June of 2022, just before DJ’s first birthday. His quality of life since then has been much improved and I couldn’t be more thankful of that milestone.
Studying for a career change into Product was also a very fulfilling and fun thing that I set out to do this year. Studying with DJ in my arms while he was asleep are moments that I will never forget, almost like he was supporting me in my studies. Through various LinkedIn Learning sessions, Product Blogs, and books, I set myself up well for upcoming interviews and am happy to say that I was able to start a new role as a Product Operations Manager at Oscar Health in August of 2022. To have my studies in the first half of the year pay off in making an impact in my new role has been very fulfilling. It’s been a wonderful experience and I am very grateful for my new leaders for providing me with this opportunity. I can’t wait to see what the future holds with my new role in Product and look forward to all that is to come.
One sure fire thing that was happening on September 4, 2022 though was going to be Ishtar and I’s very delayed Wedding Ceremony. We were engaged on June 9, 2019 and did a civil ceremony on December 19, 2019. Our Wedding Ceremony was originally scheduled for September 12, 2020. Then it was pushed to October 10, 2021, and finally one more time to September 4, 2022. So much has happened since the time we were engaged and our upcoming wedding date, the obvious things being that we all had to live through a global pandemic which was the primary cause for many delays in the wedding plans of many couples everywhere, and now we were parents that went through a pretty traumatic experience with DJ’s medical challenges. But through it all, Ishtar and I stayed strong, supported one another, forgave one another through all the challenges that we faced, and it strengthened our love for each other. It felt like we were planning for months, with Ishtar doing the brunt of the work. We planned and organized all the way to midnight on September 4th. We did everything that we could in hopes that everything would run as smoothly as possible. But of course, it didn’t go as planned. However, the things that didn’t go as planned are what we look back on as what made our wedding special, but maybe that is a story for another day. I am proud to say that as a non-dancer, the fact that we pulled off our first dance together, with everyone watching was maybe one of the proudest moments of my life haha. In the moment though, on that beautiful day on September 4, 2022, all that mattered, all that I saw in front of me was the overwhelming support of our family and friends, and of course, my beautiful wife Ishtar and our wonderful baby boy DJ.
In summary, 2022 began with so much uncertainty, so much dreariness, no light at the end of the tunnel. The one thing I knew I had to do was to keep pushing on, day by day, to improve as a parent, as a husband, as a professional so that I could do the most important task I have in my life, to take care of my family. The first half of the year with the DJ’s NG tube, studying for something that I didn’t know when was going to reap any rewards, but also the mental hurdles that all of this brought on was tough. But once DJ’s NG tube was weaned off, it was almost like a switch that turned things around that improved the entire family’s quality of life. It also just so happens that I landed my new role around that time as well. The second half of 2022 couldn’t have been more of a polar opposite, almost like an alternate reality to the first half, full of joy, full of hope, full of fulfillment and full of love. It reminded me that everything that happened, happened for a reason, and that was to bring us here to the point where we are today.
Medical Baby - DJ’s First Couple of Months
In my previous blog, I wrote about DJ’s trip to the emergency room followed by a transfer to the NICU just 11 days after he was born. It was the saddest and most difficult day of my life. The day ended with Ishtar and I having to leave our son in the very capable hands of the nurses in the NICU at Boston Children’s Hospital. We needed to get some rest but were eager to be right back by his side early in the morning.
The medical team confirmed that DJ didn’t have a virus or COVID so he was moved from a quarantine room in the NICU to the general floor. A melancholy feeling filled the room full of babies with medical needs. The nurses, stoic and focused in their work, calmly but quickly moved from station to station, baby to baby. By now, we knew that our son’s VSD was causing his symptoms. Now the medical team needed to figure out the correct medication and dosage while monitoring DJ. The day before, DJ was provided with an nasogastric tube (NG) to support his feeding while he was on high flow O2. He was thankfully able to resume eating at a normal cadence the night before and was eating my mouth again. We used every chance we could to hold our brave little heart warrior in our arms. After two nights in the NICU, DJ was moved into an in patient room.
Once DJ was transferred to an in patient room, we had such wonderful nurses that helped us around the clock. We were finally able to stay with our son in the hospital. At this point, I was at much more ease, knowing that DJ’s condition would be able to be managed by medications. After a few more days of in patient care, the medical team figured out the necessary medications and DJ was eating the necessary amount by mouth and showing that he was gaining weight again. We were able to have the NG tube removed and were discharged with four medications and a strict feeding schedule.
Though we were discharged, we still had very frequent appointments, two or three times a week, to check various things for DJ, but most importantly his weight. His heart condition caused his heart to work harder and burn more calories than normal. Over the course of the next two months, DJ gained about fourteen grams per day, whereas babies without this type of heart condition would gain around thirty grams per day at this stage. At one of DJ’s cardiology appointments, his cardiologist put him on the schedule for open heart surgery in the event that DJ was not gaining weight fast enough and the VSD didn’t show any signs of closing on it’s own. The surgery was on the schedule for October 15, 2021. The mere thought of this was almost unspeakable. But we had time to see if the VSD would start closing on its own. Despite the slower weight gain, we had the privilege of seeing him grow, learn new skills and develop his own little personality. We cherished every moment with our son in this early phase of his life as he became more and more familiar with his surroundings.
Feeding was the most difficult thing that Ishtar and I had to deal with in these early months. DJ would clearly show us his hunger signs and do his best to drink until he was too tired to continue. The heart condition made this normal task very difficult for him. The doctors had us on a strict feeding schedule around the clock, feeding him eight to ten times a day. He took anywhere from ten milliliters to ninety milliliters of fortified breast milk. He was drinking fortified breast milk to give him more calories to support is weight gain. Ishtar and I each had our difficult moments and break downs.
Holding my son in my arms, I would speak to him, plead with him, plead with God to give him the strength to drink more milk. Sometimes thirty to forty minutes would pass like this, only to realize that he only took a small amount of milk. DJ was also prone to spit ups so we had to hold him upright for more than thirty minutes after the feeding completed. After a feeding and resting session that lasted more than one hour, we would be able to put him down and maybe have one to two hours to rest before the cycle began again. There were times where I maybe pushed him to eat more than he wanted to, something I will always regret. This pattern for feeding him was soul crushing and filled me with sorrow at times, with the feeling that I was failing my son, stuck in a dark place with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Slowly but surely, as DJ grew at his own pace, he started eating better and better. Despite DJ doing better with his milk intake in September of 2021, the cardiology department at Boston Children’s Hospital asked us to go in on September 28th, 2021 to have DJ get an NG tube put in to support his weight gain. This all felt a bit sudden since we had been in constant communication with cardiology about his milk intake and frequent appointments with our pediatrician. I questioned why they were giving DJ the NG tube now instead of earlier. I never received a good explanation of this. DJ became an in patient again upon receiving the NG tube. We were still hopeful that we could avoid surgery and that the VSD was closing on its own. But the following day, we were told that DJ’s surgery could be moved to a sooner date, October 1, 2021. While Ishtar and I were prepared mentally that DJ could have surgery, we didn’t expect that this trip the the hospital would be for this reason. In our minds, we went from DJ eating on his own just hours ago, to now getting fed via NG tube and impending open heart surgery for our baby boy who was not even three months old.
The two pictures above are what I dubbed as DJ’s “stress fist.” This was an adorable behavior he had the first few months of life where he would clench his fist at his chest to show that he was uncomfortable with the situation he was in. I’m sad that this cute behavior was so short lived.
VSD (Very Sad Day)
In my previous blog, I spoke about our first week with our son, how it was filled with doctors appointments but also perfect tender family moments that I will remember and cherish forever. We were settling into a good routine, enjoying what was supposed to be newborn bliss. Then one very early morning, our joy was stolen by the urgency to bring our son to the nearest emergency room because of pulmonary distress.
It was a wet summer morning as we hastily gathered our belongings and baby bag. The sun was hours away from rising. Our son DJ was breathing abnormally fast and we were on our way to the nearby hospital’s emergency room. Two headlights guided our way through the dreary dark. I was tired but wide awake, optimistic that this was nothing major but scared of what it could potentially be.
When we got to Winchester Hospital, they checked us into the emergency room. I was completely overwhelmed by the whole situation with various doctors and nurses coming in to check on DJ. The details I do remember from this visit were that DJ was tachypneic (breathing fast) and he was having retractions. Newborns normally have a respiratory rate of between forty to sixty breaths per minute. DJ had a respiratory rate of over 100 breaths per minute. The on-call doctor at Winchester Hospital quickly told us that they couldn’t handle the case in this emergency room and were making arrangement to have DJ transferred to the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) at Boston Children’s Hospital so that he could get the care he needed.
Separated from my family, I drove through rainy Wednesday morning rush hour traffic in Boston. Ishtar rode with DJ in the ambulance as he was rushed over to Boston Children’s Hospital. The first call I made was to my big brother. I followed that up with a call to my mom. I was confused, upset, angry even, thinking why our innocent son, why us?
The first day in the NICU with DJ was overwhelming. Were it not for the excellent note taking of Boston Children’s Hospital or Ishtar’s medical background, I would have been completely lost. Constant beeping of the health monitors echoed the 24-bed NICU. With two chairs pulled up to DJ’s bed, we stayed by our baby boy’s side as the doctors and nurses went from one bassinet to another.
Various tests were done on DJ to determine what was causing his tachypnea. We were in an isolation room because they suspected he had COVID. They did everything from x-rays to echocardiograms. DJ was put on put on high flow O2 to help him breathe better. The blood tests and viral tests were able to rule out an infection of bacterial or viral in nature, but his lungs were wet as seen in his chest x-ray. What we were left with was the VSD that was diagnosed from his earlier cardiology visit. It was explained to us that DJ’s VSD was allowing extra blood to be pumped into his lungs causing them to be wet or hyperperfused. Symptoms of wet lungs are tachypnea, difficulty sustaining energy for eating and being easy to tire. This VSD that DJ has was not just going to be a benign condition for him, it was going to be something that would make the beginning of his life difficult, require medication and potentially open-heart surgery if the condition did not correct itself. They started his medication, Lasix, which is a diuretic, to help flush fluid from his body.
DJ went 18 hours before we could feed him again. Hungry and upset, he gladly accepted his milk. As the clock approached midnight, there wasn’t really a good place for us to stay over to be with DJ. Knowing that we had to get rest so we can continue to be there for him, Ishtar and I reluctantly left the hospital without our newborn son.
The drive home was somber. We spoke about what this could mean for us as parents, for DJ. We thought about the best case scenario, the worst case scenario, not knowing how all of this would affect us or maybe even break us. Upon entering our home, we already felt a huge empty void even though we were only at home with DJ for a week. His belongings scattered in nearly every room at the house, his scent wafted in the air, his image vivid in every corner of the house but the reality was he was not with us, he was spending the night alone in his NICU bassinet being cared for by kind and highly-skilled strangers. Our hearts sank even lower in our own home. After freshening ourselves up for the night, we called the NICU to make sure DJ was still doing great. Despite the reassurance from the nurse, Ishtar and I held each other tightly as we fell asleep with tears in our eyes.
Tranquility Before Despair
Love. Admiration. Excitement. Fatigue. Shock. Overwhelmed. These are all words that described my state of mind during DJ’s birth and our hospital stay. Ishtar was unbelievably tired but so unbelievably strong throughout the entire birth process. Now she needed to recover after such a difficult labor. Peaceful, quiet, joyful are the words that described our first evening with our son as we held him in our arms and watched him with adulation.
I witnessed the most beautiful love, care and determination from Ishtar as she worked with lactation consultants in her breastfeeding journey with DJ. Call me naïve, but I didn’t know that babies needed to learn how to eat, coordinating, suck, swallow, breathe motions that are so natural for all of us. But I suppose all of us were there at some point. I also learned that a baby being born and the events following are nothing like how it is depicted in the entertainment or even the new parent class we took. They only show those few tender moments while cutting out all of the important details, details that show that being a parent is more than just holding a baby.
Interrupted sleep, frequent check ups for Ishtar and DJ and visitors all brought excitement for the new baby but also fatigue for us. By the end of our hospital stay, DJ was checked from head to toe for any abnormalities. We were tasked with two things to do when we left the hospital, schedule a visit to introduce DJ to his pediatrician office and schedule a cardiology visit to diagnose a heart murmur the hospital pediatrician observed. Ishtar was feeling better after a couple days as well and we were eager to go back home. We were filled with bliss and exited to start our new life with DJ as we left the hospital.
Before we even left the hospital, we already scheduled two doctors appointments for DJ the day after we were released. The first was a visit to cardiology to diagnose his heart murmur. The second appointment was to meet the pediatrician. As DJ lay on a hospital bed, he was underwent an electrocardiogram and echocardiogram to get images of how his heart looked and functioned. As DJ’s cardiologist, Dr. Yin, explained what was causing DJ’s heart murmur, Ishtar, with her medical background was able to take it all in. With my technology background, I found myself a bit overwhelmed with all the medical jargon. DJ was diagnosed with a moderately sized ventricular septal defect (VSD). Dr. Yin did a great job explaining what that meant in layman’s terms. The left and right ventricles of the heart, normally two separate chambers with two separate functions, were connected by a small hole in DJ’s heart. It certainly isn’t something that new parents want to hear or is even ready to hear one day after being released from the hospital. However, we were told that DJ’s VSD was not a cause of concern at the moment and that as he grew, it was possible that the hole could close without outside intervention. In our own research, we also found that it was common for VSDs to resolve on their own. Dr. Yin told us to keep an eye on DJ but to treat him no differently to other babies without a VSD at this time. I took this as a good sign and put it in the back of my memory. The second appointment of the day to meet the pediatrician was a pretty standard visit with no surprises.
Adjusting to home life with DJ was a learning experience. We were fortunate to have my mom take care of Ishtar and I while we were making the adjustment. While the first week at home with DJ included three different doctors appointments, we were able to enjoy some wonderful family time and bonding with DJ. Those tender moments in the middle of the night, gently holding him and watching him dream feed, these moments are the ones they show in training classes and entertainment. Having no circadian rhythm yet, DJ was also frequently wide awake in the middle of the night as I held him and paraded around the house admiring him, speaking and singing to him, until he would fall asleep again. We went out on a warm summer morning for our first walk together as a family at a local park. DJ met his grandma and grandpa already in the hospital but also got to meet his Uncle Phil and Aunt Sara. We were all in love with our new little addition to the family.
Having difficulty with breast feeding, Ishtar decided to hire a lactation consultant to come to our home. During that appointment, she noticed that DJ didn’t have the best side to side tongue movement and diagnosed him with a lip and tongue tie. She assured us that this is an easy fix and referred us to a pediatric dentist. Just one week after being released from the hospital, DJ had a minor surgery to resolve his lip and tongue tie. This procedure is a very minor procedure performed in the pediatric dental office and only took a few minutes. DJ was very brave through it all. Our only instructions were to provide him a little Tylenol for pain management and to stimulate the areas that received the surgery so the lip and tongue tie don’t reconnect.
On a quiet Monday evening, Ishtar and I were just enjoying our family time with DJ by our side. DJ has just had his dental surgery earlier that day. We were watching the NBA Finals and the Milwaukee Bucks ended up winning the NBA Championship. We developed a good rhythm for DJ’s feeds and ourselves over the course of our first week home. Everything was normal when we went to sleep that night, until it wasn’t. Shaken awake by my panicked wife, Ishtar said that it looked like DJ was breathing abnormally fast. Upon closer look, it certainly looked like he was huffing and puffing even in a calm and resting state. A call to our pediatrician’s on call hotline told us to bring him to the emergency room. In the early hours of July 20, 2021, just eleven days after birth, we were bringing our newborn son to the emergency room, unsure what to expect, nervous for what was to come.
DJ sleeping adorably in his Love To Dream Swaddle Up sleep sack.
Learning about the Moro reflex which causes babies to flail around was very interesting. DJ had times where he would startle himself awake unless he was swaddled tightly. This swaddle was such a great tool in helping DJ sleep and stay asleep. He used this until he outgrew it. Regular swaddles were something that he figured out how to break out of even as a very young infant.
Becoming Parents
This week will be the start of a series of blogs about our journey so far as parents. Parenthood is something that we planned for, studied, and were extremely excited for. We thought we were ready physically, emotionally, mentally. What we learned is that parenthood, while there are more resources than ever to help prepare for it, you will never be fully prepared to traverse your own unique journey.
It was a rainy morning in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We had just visited Mt. Auburn Hospital after Ishtar’s water broke. The doctors told us that Ishtar was still early in her labor, so we were allowed to go home and spend early labor there. The time was about five in the morning on July 8th, 2021. We were told to go back to the hospital between three and five in the afternoon. We didn’t sleep all night. We grabbed a bite to eat at a local IHOP on our way home, anxious about the hours that were to come.
At home, we were both able to get a few hours of sleep. After eating lunch, we were back on the road to the hospital. Checking into the delivery room, we settled in for the night. As Ishtar’s pain started increasing, she was unable to get any rest and opted for an epidural. I could only wait at the door of the room, teeth and fists clenched, as I heard my wife writhing in pain as the epidural was applied. Already more than twenty-four hours into labor, Ishtar was able to get some pain relief from the epidural and get some sleep.
It was now July 9th, 2021. Ishtar had been in labor since the late hours of July 7th. She was exhausted and ordered by nurses to not consume any food, only getting water and popsicles. As time kept ticking, we both just wanted to see, to hold our son. The pushing began just after noon. After about two hours, Ishtar was running low on energy to push and developed a fever. The fever was caused by the amniotic sac being broken for too long and developing an infection of the placenta and amniotic fluid. Up until that point, we had tried everything from pushing, to assisted pushing to vacuum. For Ishtar and our son’s safety, we agreed to have a C section. Anxiety was high as Ishtar was being wheeled away to the operating room. The feeling of helplessness throughout the entire labor process was pushing its way to the front of my thoughts.
Once I entered the operating room, Ishtar was already prepped and comfortable for the surgery. Once the surgery began, I could barely keep it together. But I had to be strong for my wife. On this dreary summer afternoon on July 9th, 2021, just after four in the afternoon, our sunshine, our light, our future, our perfect son, arrived in the world. We named him Damon Morey Chen. We wanted to honor the effort my mother spent in finding me an uncommon name and for our son to always have a little piece of his grandma with him. His middle name, Morey, has an Irish etymology and means proud. We chose this name because our son is our pride and joy. We also affectionately call him DJ (Damon Junior) even though his name didn’t officially qualify him to be a Junior (Yes I had to look into this in depth and was very surprised to learn this, great article for reference here.)
I’ll always remember the moment I saw DJ as the doctor was holding him up for his first picture. He peeked one eye open and had this look of “Where am I?” It was priceless. My Canon M50 was able to muster one perfect shot of DJ meeting his mama before the battery died. I had been vlogging this experience for us to look back on in the future and to share with Ishtar’s mom in the Philippines. Thank goodness for modern cellphone cameras. Once the surgery was complete, we had to be apart for a few moments as the doctors did a check up on DJ. After more than forty hours of labor, we settled in the recovery room post delivery and had our first tender moments as a family. Holding my wife and son in my arms together at the same time, our first moments as a family were beautiful, unforgettable, life-changing. Once we were cleared in the monitoring room, we were moved to an in-patient room. Nothing about DJ’s delivery went as planned, but I wouldn’t have wanted the experience to be any different. This was our story with DJ, and it was just beginning. Everything that we planned and prepared for as parents were about to change.
A picture of DJ sleeping comfortable shortly after arriving into the world.
Persistent Pursuit of Perfection Part 5: New Beginnings
In my previous blog post, I wrote about finding my first job out of college and the opportunities that I was given and created for myself. My growth and professional development was due to my peers and my leadership continuously providing more interesting and fulfilling work and my persistent pursuit of perfection to be the best employee that I can be. However, there will always come a time that for your own sake, whether personal or professional, that you need to move on to your next challenge. Sometimes your role doesn’t provide the challenge that it once did, sometimes your personal interests lie elsewhere, sometimes you’ll want to learn and explore new things, sometimes you just want a change of scenery, sometimes your opportunity is dried up. You have to be honest and ask yourself, is the work I am doing aligning with my professional and career goals? After just over five years, I decided that it was time for me to move on to the next chapter of my career, keeping that chip on my shoulder and that persistent pursuit of perfection.
As I transitioned to my second company, I went back to an individual contributor role. Everything was new, new company, new teammates, new industry, new technology, new opportunity. Transitioning from internet tech support and people managing to working in a cloud based healthcare software company proved to be challenging but also rewarding. I particularly loved the mission of the company, to enable doctors to focus on being doctors by making the technology side of things easier. Funny enough, my big brother Josh, mentioned in a previous blog, was a doctor at a practice that used the software produced by my new company.
Starting my new role as a NOC (Network Operations Center) Associate, I realized how focused my previous role was, to provide Internet access to a customer. In my new role, my team is responsible for monitoring and responding to hardware, software, network, and database problems, just to name a few. With all the components of cloud based software, there are naturally a ton of teams that develop their portion of the software. My team is responsible for making sure that all of the services offered by the company are humming along with as little interruption as possible. This is even more fun when there are always new services being developed and onboarded for my team to monitor and cyclical code releases that introduce new documentation, troubleshooting and complexity into the services. I was a rookie again and it was really exciting to learn and prove the value I can provide to the team.
My responsibilities came down to four primary workflows, service management or tickets submitted to the team, alert management, incident management, which monitor for and resolve services issues, and project management. My prior experience set me up to be a high performer in service management. Alert and incident management was something that I had to learn on the job. Luckily for me, applications used such as ServiceNow, Jira and Confluence enable easier collaboration and knowledge transfer. Project management is where I would find opportunity to make my mark.
One of the projects that I worked on was to maintain the disaster recovery documentation for my team. This evolved from something that my team managed on our own to an opportunity to work with the Environment team to migrate the entire organization’s disaster recovery plan into a Business Continuity Management system. The project that left the biggest mark on me though was being a primary stakeholder in launching a home grown public facing status page for customers and the world to see. This opportunity lead me to my first product management experience. I was responsible for gathering requirements from customer facing teams, writing the requirements into user stories for the development team, holding weekly stand up meetings with the developers and weekly meetings to provide status update to the other major stakeholders. of the status page product. After months of hard work from all the parties involved, we successfully launched the product. The collaboration, effective communication and technical expertise required for that project was something that I felt perfectly suited my skill set. Even after launching the product, I remained it’s primary stakeholder and expert.
My performance and consistency in going outside of my regular responsibilities led me to being promoted again to people manager. Since then, I’ve managed the NOC but also conduct scrum ceremonies for a sister team of the NOC that develops tools and applications used by the NOC and our customers. Some of the major projects that have been completed are a creation of a new incident management system used by the company and a migration to a new ChatOps tool. I continue to tap into my network and learn from other Product Managers looking for ways to continuously help the team become more efficient.
Shortly after I became a manager, the world was struck by COVID-19. As a historically on site team, I had to lead the charge when the team switched to remote work. There have been many changes to the workflow of the NOC and the sister development team. Everything changed for me when my son was born in July of 2021. My son was born with a heart condition and I was out of work for a long time. This situation has been something difficult for my family but also caused me to reflect on what I want to do with my career moving forward. I remembered the joy that I had launching the status page product and that is something I want to capture again in a full time Product Manager role. I thank my leadership, Chris and Jim, for supporting my career growth and development and encouraging me to pursue my goal to become a Product Manager.
If you made it this far in my Persistent Pursuit of Perfection blog series, thank you for reading the story of my career thus far. I hope highlighting my professional experience in this light gives you a good insight into my approach to my career. I suppose the story is best summarized in a quote by James Clear from his book Atomic Habits, “Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. It’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. Your actions reveal your true motivations.” I hope my blogs and stories can help motivate your persistent pursuit of perfection and to not settle for anything less.
I’d also like to take a moment to thank my professional mentor and friend, Chris Haeni. You’ve inspired me to expand my continuing education. Thank you for motivating me on my journey to be a better person and employee with your book recommendations and sharing your wealth of experience and honest feedback with me. I’d like to thank my wife Ishtar and my son DJ for their daily inspiration, motivation and support for my career and personal aspirations. Self motivation is important, but always remember the ones that helped you get to where you are and those who are always there to support you unconditionally.
This is a painting called “the Doctor” by artist Luke Fildes. This painting was shared during new hire orientation at my second company and has left a lasting impact on how important the mission of the company is, to enable Doctors to be Doctors and focus on the patient.
Also, Happy Star Wars Day to all!
Persistent Pursuit of Perfection Part 4: Opportunity
In my previous blog post, I wrote about all the jobs that I worked in my youth all the way through college. In all the various odd jobs, I always put my best foot forward. It didn’t matter working the front desk at my Dad’s Chinese take out restaurant, volunteering to mentor elementary school students, working for the Assistant Headmaster at Boston Latin School to perform various office tasks, driving buses at UMass Amherst or even my summer job as a car Service Agent at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, I always worked extremely hard. Looking back though, all of these jobs provided invaluable experience and developed humility that would become a part of my identity. This is the story about my first professional opportunity.
In my first blog post about my inspiration to begin this website, I mentioned how I came across a Craigslist ad that was posted by a recruiting company in Boston. The ad was very unassuming, but it was this unassuming Craigslist ad that became the first job opportunity in my career, something that led me to the position that I am in today. I was able to draw on my past phone and customer service experience as an Internet Service Provider tech support agent.
The first person who trained me was like an encyclopedia for all Internet service providers, what differentiated them and how all of them needed to be configured. So I tried to soak up everything that I can, asked a lot of questions and I watched how he expertly approached his work. Thanks Ramon. I learned from another mentor, Dixon, a meticulous way to organize our freeform text fields and ticket notes. I learned what worked for them and adapted some of their techniques and knowledge to form my own style. Every call was an opportunity to reflect on how to be more efficient on the next and to learn how to interact better with customers, with Internet Service Providers, and with technical and non-technical people. Every ticket was an opportunity to become a better writer in order to effectively communicate with teammates on actions that were already taken on a particular ticket.
In a call center environment, performance is measured by output (i.e. calls taken, tickets worked and tickets closed). In order to stand out, I had to make a conscious effort to make the most of every minute of the work day. As I became more familiar with each service provider around the country, I was able to predict the questions that would be asked of me and be prepared with the requisite answers. I even practiced my typing so that I could further optimize my output. In a matter of a few months I became one of the strongest members of the team.
While every call and every ticket worked was an opportunity to become better at the role, all teams at all companies are always going to have problems that need solving. One problem I identified was the disorganized and inconsistent way that the department did training. I saw this as an opportunity for myself to create a formal training class for new hires joining the department. After a few months of creating the content, it was launched and became a requirement for all new employees. This opportunity wasn’t just a learning experience for me to become a teacher/mentor on the team, but also provided new hires with a streamlined program that would set them up to be successful at their role. To this day, some of that content I created is still in use despite many iterations over the past ten years. I am proud of this accomplishment not just because I saw an opportunity to improve something and worked tirelessly to achieve my goal, but because it made a positive impact on my teammates’ careers. Working to excel at my everyday responsibilities and taking the opportunity to create a valuable resource for the team led me to another opportunity, when the managers of my team asked me to join them in management.
As I transitioned into management, I managed people that started at the company like I did. Technical troubleshooting always follows a particular set of rules that must be followed in order for the piece of technology to work. That part isn’t that difficult to teach. The challenging and best part of managing people is needing to adapt my management style in a relatable way, putting into consideration the background, motivation, learning style, and personalities of each individual. This is much easier said than done. There are some scenarios that I’ve come across that my management peers and I didn’t always have the right answer for. Encountering these types of challenges in management for the first time was a very humbling yet thought-provoking time. Even though the solutions are not always going to be an if-this-then-that scenario, I always approach these situations as just another problem to solve.
Despite being a reliable individual contributor, the truth was that I was a very inexperienced people manager. Weekly one-on-one meetings, quarterly review meetings, management meetings and presentations for other departments, every meeting was an opportunity to learn from my directs, my peers and my leaders. I try to learn from other established managers, whether they directly managed me or were leaders in another part of the company. I also immersed myself in management and self help books and podcasts such as Manager Tools. Even now, years after my first management position, I am always trying to learn how to be a better people manager. The greatest fulfillment I have as a people manager is seeing former direct reports of mine thriving in their careers, as managers, as engineers, as leaders as they continue to grow and develop, long after I managed them. Although my role in managing these folks was just a small part of their overall development as a professional, I can’t help but feel proud and delighted knowing that I contributed to their growth and success.
Sometimes opportunity is hidden in the place you would least expect it, sometimes it is right in front of you, sometimes it gets given to you. Opportunities are around you every moment of every day. It is up to you to find that opportunity and use it as a springboard for your continued growth and development. There always comes a time where you need to make a decision to leave your current position and look at other departments, other teams and/or other companies for the next opportunity that aligns with your career goals. After five years, I decided to look for that new opportunity to continue my growth and development as a professional.
Persistent Pursuit of Perfection Part 3: Remember Where You Came From
In my previous blog, I told a story of how I lost my dear friend Stephanie. This was a momentous event in my life and it changed me abruptly. In this week’s blog, I want to talk about the part time jobs I held that led to small gradual changes and helped shape the person I am today. Regardless of where anyone is or will be in their careers and in their lives, I think it is always important to remember where you came from. It keeps you humble and brings perspective to challenges that people around you may have also faced, or are still facing.
I was just eight years old when I started working in my Dad’s restaurant. It was commonplace to see children of Chinese restaurant owners helping the family business. I worked the front desk answering phone calls and taking orders for customers. At this age, I didn’t think it was work but rather just helping my Dad out. I continued working at my Dad’s restaurant through high school. Once I was in high school, I would work on some Fridays, weekends and in the summer. This is also when I began trying to be as efficient as possible with the front desk and also picked up some of the appetizer station work. I wanted to help in more ways than he would actually let me. Little did I know, this experience would prove invaluable as it developed customer service and phone etiquette skills that would later be the core of my first job out of college.
Once college began, I applied to work-study jobs on campus at UMass Amherst. However, these jobs prioritized students with financial needs based on family income. Needless to say, work-study jobs were always filled with students that met the requirements. With difficulty finding part time work, I focused on developing friendships that I have to this day and fulfilling general education requirements during my first two years of college.
By my sophomore year, I got my drivers license and first car so I could easily go between UMass and home. Growing up in Boston and always having access to the MBTA, I did not prioritize getting a driver’s license until college. Once I got more driving experience, I applied for work at UMass Transit at the beginning of my junior year of college and became a part time bus driver. They helped me get my CDL drivers license and I worked there for the rest of my college career. Despite the campus having over 20,000 students, we employed less than two hundred people, serving the five neighboring universities and their towns. This job kept me busy and even though I envied other students who could do their schoolwork while working in the library or classrooms, I learned how to sharpen my focus on my main responsibilities; academics and bus driving. I thought about my job as bus driver like this, it was my responsibility to get enough rest so that I was always sharp on the road and able to keep my passengers safe. To further complicate this, I drove around the clock, morning shifts that began at six in the morning, afternoon shifts before dinner, and even overnight shifts. But I didn’t miss a beat. I was at the top of my game managing my time between bus driving, studying, and socializing. I knew what my priorities were and I stayed disciplined. Now, with less time on my hands, I was more efficient than ever, grades better than ever.
I continued the momentum even in the summer between my junior and senior year of college. I worked part time at an Enterprise Rent-A-Car as Service Agent. Because I had shifts at UMass Transit where we were responsible for the maintenance of the buses, this didn’t feel much different at all. As a Service Agent at Enterprise, my responsibility was cleaning and prepping cars and picking customers up. It was my goal to provide the rental team with the best looking cars possible and represent the company in the best light when picking customers up. My work ethic resulted to being appreciated and commended by manager who saw the consistency and dedication I put in my work even though I was just there as a part-time employee for one season.
As my colleague career concluded, so did my career as a bus driver. I had a very interesting and strange resume which included working the front desk of a restaurant, volunteering at academic institutions, and a lot of experience in public transportation services. I graduated with a major in Communications, a minor in IT and a minor in Chinese with Cum Laude honors. Uploading my resume to job websites led me to a lot of commercial driving jobs. I looked everywhere for all sorts of jobs that either fit what I studied or my interests. Like Malcolm Gladwell says in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, “Practice isn't the thing you do once you’re good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.” Dealing with irate customers face to face and on the phone, working difficult hours and doing the dirty work that no one else wanted to do with diligence and efficiency is what would set me apart. I put in the hours and practice. I just needed an opportunity to show my work ethic and experience. Little did I know, this opportunity came in the form of an inconspicuous Craigslist posting.
When I look back at my jobs prior to graduating college, I have nothing but fond memories of all of them. They were all very different experiences and taught me different skills that I still use to this day. I had a lot of fun with all of them. Honestly, sometimes I still feel like that little boy behind the counter of the Chinese restaurant, bright eyed and just wanting to impress his father and make customers happy.
Persistent Pursuit of Perfection Part 2: The Promise
I remember being the best student in my class when I was a middle school student at Saint Columbkille’s private catholic school in Brighton, MA. I was fortunate enough to have great teachers at this school who prepared me well for the Independent School Entrance Examination (ISEE) for the three best schools in Boston. Thanks Sister Catherine and Ms. Desmond. I scored well enough to earn myself a spot in the prestigious Boston Latin School. To this day, I’m very proud to have attended a school with such history and significance in the development of United States, having had many founding fathers, leaders and successful alumni come from this school. This school had the best of the best that Boston had to offer, and I was quickly humbled by my amazingly intelligent peers. I was a C student for the first two years of attending the school. Despite my academic difficulties to start high school, I was able to make a great group of friends who I still keep in touch with today. We’ve all gone on to do very different things with our lives and careers, but at the time they were all excellent in school. Like author James Clear said in his book Atomic Habits, “Surround yourself with people who have the same goals as you. You’ll rise together.” However, there was one event that changed my life forever.
17 years ago as of the date of writing this post, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon. I was taking the MBTA from my house to North Station in Boston with my Physics project and Playstation Portable (PSP) in tow. I was on my way to my Dad’s restaurant in Rockport, MA. As a teenager, I was obsessed with playing video games and tinkering with technology. My PSP was my prized possession at the time. That device started my interest in software and networking. But this story isn’t about that. I remember sitting down on the Commuter Rail Train bound for Rockport and turning on my PSP, intending to kill some time on the train ride, but immediately didn’t feel right and turned it off. When I was at work, I didn’t think much of what bothered me on the train ride as I was fiddling around with my Physics project of making a flashlight. I don’t really remember much about the rest of that Saturday or the Sunday that followed. When I got to school on Monday, I received the news that changed the person that I was and the person that I would become.
As soon as I got to school, the air was a bit different than usual. There was commotion about something that happened over the weekend. I heard kids talking about a car accident. Then I learned that the person involved was my dear friend Stephanie Lam. She was struck by an SUV in Boston on Saturday. She was quickly rushed to the hospital but didn’t make it. I was in absolute shock. I thought to myself that I was so close to the site of the accident, maybe I could have done something. But there is no way I could have known. But I felt something was off. School became a blur as I was stuck in my own head with despair and disbelief.
I met Stephanie at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school in our geometry class. Stephanie had a ritual every morning where she would come pat me on the head and say “poofy.” My thick, straight, black hair has a tendency to grow in a spike, much like a porcupine. She marched to the beat of her own drum and didn’t let others dictate what she could or could not do. She inspired me in that way. She was my high school crush, a wonderful person who would go out of her way to make me feel welcome or even special. She was the girl I was going to ask out to the sophomore social. Even though I hadn’t known her long, she made a lasting impact on me. Losing her felt like the end of the world back then.
This was the first time I, and many of her friends, ever lost someone significant. The wake was two days and I stayed at the funeral home with her family and friends until it was time to leave on both days. The weeks that followed were spent remembering Stephanie. School was an afterthought and I barely passed some classes that year. I just wanted to feel whole again. My friends and I shared our grief and company the best way high schoolers know how. The remaining months of sophomore year were spent hanging out around the school, going out for food or playing basketball. I needed to be around my friends. Through the support of my friends and even my guidance counselor, I was able to recover after a few months. As someone who reflects a lot on things that happen in life, perhaps to a fault, I reflected on what Stephanie may have wanted for her friends. She wouldn’t have wanted us to be miserable forever. It was with this realization when I promised to myself, to Stephanie and to my friends that I would become someone who would make them proud.
Once school resumed for my junior year of high school, I was reinvigorated to do well. I think my peers and my teachers were able to see that and I turned my academics around. While I never became that best student again like I was in middle school, I didn’t need to be, didn’t want to be. I just wanted to be the best version of me. I took this energy and started extra curricular activities in the form of school clubs. During the summer of junior year, I was a volunteer at a summer school for elementary school students. By my senior year, I was a volunteer for one of the Assistant Headmasters, Mr. Fulton, performing various office tasks for him. However, he also provided great academic, career and life advice. I participated in six clubs, being Vice President of one club and the President of another. Our school clubs were a way for us to share and express our interests. My clubs consisted of Japanese music and culture, Video Games, Mahjong, Anime, and Photoshop (can’t remember the last one for some reason). My guidance counselor, Mr. Montague, was a big advocate for me and even made calls to colleges on my behalf. His support in my high school career was invaluable. He was a mentor but above all, he was a friend. Through all of this, I became closer to my friends, explored many interests and received invaluable advice from those around me.
I got into the college I want to attend and was excited for the people and experiences I had yet to encounter. What I came to realize is, the death of Stephanie and the support of my friends and mentors were the invisible force that guided me for the rest of my high school years, through college and thereafter. I’ll close by saying that there was, what can only be explained as a supernatural encounter or coincidence, that made me really have faith that Stephanie is looking down on her friends and letting us know that she’s alright and watching over us. We were burning letters that we wrote for her at the site of the accident, when I saw, if only for a brief moment, the letters LUV U appear in the flames of the paper. From then on, I knew I had to make Stephanie and those who supported me proud. Honor those who love and support you by giving it your best each and every day.
I’d like to give a special thanks to my friends who were there with me then and have remained by my side since that time 17 years ago. Thank you Sophia, Matt, Greg, Jeff, Le, Tim, Galin, Wilson and Liz for sticking with me all these years. I wouldn’t be me without you all.
The significance of the crane image here is there is an old Japanese folklore that if you make 1000 cranes, it can make wishes come true. My friends and I made 1000 cranes for Stephanie when she tragically passed away in 2005.
Credit for this image goes to https://savingcranes.org/education/origami-cranes/
Persistent Pursuit of Perfection Part 1: The Building Blocks of Success
This is part one of a series of blogs that I will publish on a phrase that I live by and preach: the Persistent Pursuit of Perfection.
As some people read the title of this blog, they may think that the idea of perfection is narcissistic or toxic. Hold that thought and hear me out. When I coach people using this phrase, there is always context behind it. The context is my own personal growth journey that helped me get where I am today.
The story begins with my parents. They showed and taught me strong work ethic from a very early age. As immigrants to the US from China in their early 20s, they had to work very hard just to make ends meet. They did their best to provide a better life for my brother and me. This work ethic is something that I noticed day in and day out. It was most most evident in my Dad, who worked restaurant jobs most of my life. Growing up, he was always out the door before I woke up, and came home when I was already in bed. This sacrifice to provide for us is something I didn’t quite understand as a young boy who saw how all of his peers had their father present at school and sports events. My Mom worked hard in her own way, learning English and working her way up from bank teller to private wealth management. I was aware enough to remember the difficult financial times that my parents had early in my life and saw that grow into a comfortable middle class lifestyle. While I didn’t notice or appreciate all of this in my youth, thinking back on it, this work ethic rubbed off on me in a subliminal way and would shape the person that I would become. Thanks Mom and Dad for teaching and showing me that hard work does pay off.
As a young immigrant in a new country juggling a job and being a parent, my Mom sought ways to help raise me with the help of the community. As soon as the first grade, my Mom enrolled me in a Big Brothers Big Sisters of America program. All the big brothers and big sisters in these programs were student volunteers that attended local Boston colleges and universities. I don’t remember too much from my first grade big brother but in the second grade, the big brother who was assigned to me changed my life forever. Right now, he is known as Dr. Joshua Silverstein, MD, but to me, he’s always just been Josh, my Big Brother. I remember taking the MBTA with him from my house to go to various places like the Museum of Science, Celtics, Red Sox and Terriers games. He was a medical student at the time at Boston University. I’m so fortunate that he liked me so much that he requested to be assigned to me again in the third grade. Since then, Josh has gone on to do many things in many places around North America. We even kept in touch as pen pals with hand written letters while he was away in the early 2000s. We’ve been there for each other when we lost people in our lives. We’ve been there for each other for the birth of our children. Thank you Josh for being the Big Brother I never had, for keeping me on the right path and inspiring me to be the best person I can be.
President Eisenhower once said “Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.” I think this quote best describes how I feel about my Mom, Dad and Josh. They were the building blocks of my persistent pursuit of perfection, my relentless drive to be the best person that I can be.
Inspiration for this website
When I think back to 2011 after I graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I didn’t have a job lined up. My major was in Communications, and even though I focused on Media Studies, it was still very broad. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my career. I was interested in photography at the time and applied to a job to take school portraits. As a student, I was a part time bus driver with a CDL license and briefly thought it would be cool to work for Boston Duck Tours. I majored in Communications because I wanted to be a sports anchor for ESPN or for one of the local Boston sports channels and applied to television roles. Several of my communications professors, Professor Benjamin Baily, Professor Anne Cieko, Professor Claudio Moreira, Professor Lisa Henderson, and Professor Sut Jhally among others all left a mark on me as an undergraduate student and I really considered going back to my Alma Mater and pursue a Master’s Degree in Communications and eventually become a Communications professor. However, as someone who tinkered with computers from a young age, I was always good at solving computer problems and everything changed one summer day when I applied to a technology position on Craigslist.
In August of 2011, just about three months after graduating, I interviewed for a position to be an internet technical support specialist for a Nationwide Internet service provider. Based on the Craigslist ad that I saw, I seriously thought I was interviewing for a computer tech support job at a local mom/pop shop. So I was very surprised when I pulled up to a corporate building that employed over fifteen-hundred people. The person who interviewed me was the Assistant Manager of the department and he gave me my first career opportunity. To this day, I am very grateful for the opportunity I was given to begin my career. Thanks Adam.
During the first year of my career, I sharpened my skills and technical knowledge to the point where I was one of the go to experts on the team despite my short tenure. Then the part of me that wanted to go back to school to become a professor kicked in. There was a very disorganized and inconsistent way that the department did training. I saw this as an opportunity for myself to create a formal training class that could train any amount of people that would start at a given time. After a few months of work creating the content, it was launched and became a huge success. Everyone coming into the department would now receive the same formal training on all that was required to do the job before they even sat with anyone for shadowing. They were better equipped to succeed and to this day, some of that content I created is still in use despite many iterations over the past ten years. The reason I am proud of this accomplishment is not just because I saw an opportunity to improve something and knocked it out of the park, but because it made a positive impact on my teammates careers. This hard work payed off when the managers of my team asked me to join them in management and I was promoted to the position of supervisor.
My time as a supervisor was amazing. I was able to manage the most amazing people and help them progress in their careers and even lead some of them into management and engineering positions. To me, my relationship with my direct reports was the most important aspect of being a supervisor. At work, there was no greater joy than being able to watch them grow and flourish personally, technically and professionally. I was with my first company for five years, three of those years in management, before I decided that it was time for me to look for a different challenge. I found that challenge as an individual contributor at a local healthcare software company. One thing I knew that I was going to miss was the manager to employee interaction and relationship building that I enjoyed so much. But I told myself that when the time was “right,” I was going to start sharing my experiences personally and professionally on the web and try to impact people beyond just my social circle.
As soon as I joined my second company, there was so much to learn. I started working with different technology that I did not work with professionally before. On top of learning all the technical things, I jumped at every opportunity to work on any projects that came to my team. These odds tasks ranged anywhere from updating and eventually helping overhaul a Disaster Recovery Plan for the team to becoming a pseudo Product Manager to take our private status page and make it a public product for tens of thousands of customers to consume. That was my first taste of Product Management and I was hooked. There was something about the role that blended technical expertise, cross team and customer collaboration and defining and organizing the work necessary for successful deployment of the product that seemed to blend all my experiences and skills together. This is when I knew that I wanted to become a Product Manager. This was all put on hold when my manager approached me with an offer become a manager on my current team. After some deliberation, I made the decision to accept the offer.
Over five and a half years have passed since I joined my second company, three years since I helped launch the public facing status page for our customers, two and a half years since I became a people manager again. This management experience has been very different from my previous one. I’ve even been able to continue to do some product management responsibilities for one of our sister teams. However, my time is primarily spent on people management and I long for the day that an opportunity for product management comes my way.
My personal life has changed so much in that time span as well. I met the person who would become my wife. We bought our first house together and got married shortly after. The world is still going through a global pandemic. We welcomed a beautiful baby boy into our family in 2021. Our baby boy faced some medical issues and needed to have open heart surgery at two and a half months of age. With everything that has happened in 2016, I’ve finally realized that there is never going to be a “right” time to start my dream of sharing my experiences with a broader audience online.
As author James Clear says in his book Atomic Habits, “Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.” I won’t let that be me. I want to continue my journey to become the best version of myself, to be a better person, better employee, better husband and better father. This website is the start of that dream to help make a positive impact on people beyond my social circle. So here I am, starting this exciting journey to share my personal and professional experiences online for everyone to read. If even one person can find value in anything that I share, then I will have already achieved what I set out to do.
