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.
