"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." – Helen Keller
Today I started taking my Vitamin D supplements.
My mom refilled my medications today and received vitamin supplements with the usual prescriptions.
I take two tablets daily at night, or 100 mcg per day or 4,000 IU. Each tablet is 50 mcg or 2,000 IU.
The Vitamin D Council recommends getting at least 5,000 IU of Vitamin D every day.
They’re not much of a hassle to take. I always take the medication with water.
Today I got my retainer.
And it hurts. It’s a cold hunk of plastic pressing against my teeth. Not only did it hurt, but it also made me gag.
Geez, how uncomfortable can this retainer be?
I have the urge to take it out, constantly. It also makes me speak funny, so that’ll be great in school.
They told me how to take care of my retainer. First, I have to wear the retainer all the time and only take it out for eating or brushing my teeth/flossing. Secondly, I have to clean the retainer in a solution with a pill.
I don’t think I can wear this retainer all the time.
Yeah, so I’m still not wearing my retainer.
I’ve decided to wear it during the night.
It’s just, wearing it during the day is so hard. I talk so funny with it on. I tried to do class discussions in English with it on, but it didn’t work out.
Also, I can’t rinse my retainer at school. Before I put it in its case, I have to rinse my retainer. And I have to take out my retainer every time before I eat. So it’s such a hassle.
Victoria came to discuss “Justin’s Hearty Recipes 2.0”. Or “Justin’s Hearty Recipes: The Sequel”.
First, she congratulated me on the release. She promised to bring the Palo Alto Weekly newspaper of me, but she forgot.
Then we talked about the sequel.
She had some great new ideas. Of course, I can’t share them with you, but they’re awesome.
She advised me not to put “Justin’s Hearty Recipes” on Amazon because no one would buy it. It’d be a rip off to have people pay about $15 for 10 Recipes.
The entire cookbook is right here, on my blog. Click here 👉Justin’s Hearty Recipes👈
It’s approaching the last day of school with only two weeks left, and that means yearbooks will be distributed soon. Suprise, yearbooks will be distributed tomorrow!
In case you don’t know, I’m going to be featured in the yearbook. Someone came to interview me on January 10, 2019 and take a picture of me on January 21, 2019. I have an entire two pages of a spread to myself, which is quite unique.
I know I should feel excited, but I’m feeling a bit nervous.
What am I supposed to expect? I’ll probrably recieve positive feedback from everyone, which is great, but then what?
I don’t want to be known as THAT heart transplant kid. I’m not just that heart transplant kid, I have more to offer.
Does this add to my personality or become my personality?
Throughout the year I haven’t been shouting it out on the rooftops but also not outright denying it. When someone asks me about it, I’ll tell them about it.
My biomedical class know about it (October 12, 2018), the Pink Dot Club knows about it (January 22, 2019), my last year Honors English class knows about it, and a random classmate even knows about it (January 25, 2019).
This time it’s different. It’s not that I haven’t had a lot of people look at my story before, but these people at school know me.
I’m so strange. I can handle telling random strangers about my heart transplant, but I can’t bear to tell people I know.
The truth always come out, but I don’t know why I want to hide what I am.
When I came in nobody knew my name. When I come out everybody will know my name.
Is this a good thing?
Today was the last day of school, and it couldn’t have gone better. I officially survived my sophomore year (10th grade) of High School!
I did fine academically this year, which is unexpected. Another thing surprising is how well I adjusted back into life.
This school year was different from all the other school years because of my heart transplant. A year ago, I was picking brochures for my online High School. I was preparing to start my sophomore year online.
I think my most significant accomplishment of this year was my success. I not only survived, but I also thrived.
In a year, I started a blog, released a cookbook, and developed healthy habits that’ll guide me for the rest of my life.
If I can do all of that within a year, who knows what will occur during the next year?
I have dreams, but for the first time, my dreams seem attainable. I’m so close to my goals that I can feel my fingertips barely grazing them.
As my English teacher said, “I’m expecting great things from you.”
This is only the beginning. The beginning of what? I don’t know. Whatever IT is, it’s going to be great.
Look out world, Justin Wang is coming!
Something amazing happened today. I went to the Donor Network West headquarters in San Ramon and met everyone!
At 3PM, I went up to meet with Cathy. I met Cathy Koubek at my cookbook release, and she’s basically the marketing person of Donor Network West.
She gave me a tour of the entire office. It was so exciting. This is where they matched my donor to me.
She gave me a rundown of where everyone was: marketing, research, volunteer services, donor help, and the kitchen.
The coolest part I think is the command center. I’m calling it the command center because it’s similar to a command center.
In the command center, organs are matched to their recipients. When a potential donor dies, nearby hospitals call the command center. If the potential donor is registered to be a donor, they’re added onto the database. If the potential donor is not registered to be an organ donor, a representative is sent to the hospital to talk to the family.
Once on the database, they match up the organs available to the best suited recipient. The recipient is then called by the hospital, and the organ is transported.
The command center is completely cut off from the rest of the office. They have their own separate AC, kitchen, and power supply (in case of an outage).
I met a lot of people. Beverley Mayer works with Cathy in marketing, and that’s where they try to spread awareness. Noel Sanchez works in marketing, along with Mike Fresie. So nice to meet them all!
Today Dr. B retired. He’s been my oncologist for a while: since I was a toddler with Loeffler’s syndrome.
Dr.B has been amazing with what’s been happening. I haven’t seen him for a couple of years, then after I had my transplant I showed up at his clinic and was like “heyo!”
I was invited to his retirement party. A lot of his patients were invited and I had the honor of being one of them.
It was packed. The room had so many patients, all connected to him. There was a table with a lot of food — chow mein, egg rolls, dumplings — and I was encouraged to eat some.
Kim, my social worker from those toddler days, told me “everyone in this room has a story.” So I decided to seek out those stories.
There was a mom whose son was treated by Dr. B. Unfortunately, cancer got the best of him and he passed away.
There was another child who was 5. The mom told me he had cancer, but he was successfully treated and is now cancer-free.
Then the speeches started. Dr. B. had a motivating message: childhood cancer is devastating, but your future is what you decide it to be.
After that, patients stood up and talked about their stories with Dr. B. Some even cried. It was just that emotional.
One patient was 18 when she was diagnosed with cancer, but Dr. B. fought for her to stay on the pediatric side. She later learned if she was transferred to the adult side, she would’ve died.
The mom of the 5-year-old cancer free boy also stood up and started to cry.
His collegue, a doctor, said that although Dr. B. was a funny guy, he’s also very strong. When a patient passed, they both had an emotional, touching cry together.
Afterwards, patients lined up to talk to Dr. B. and say their last regards. I stayed until the food was being put away, so that I could ask about his plans after retirement. He said he wanted to study something.
I think it’s really cool what he did. He left behind a legacy of patients that are alive because of him. Many aspiring doctors studying in school start off with the dream he has.
Although it’s sad he has to go, it’s happy because he left a lot of joy behind. Overall, what a great life.
Today I hung out with Izzy. I met Izzy at the transplant reunion party last year (August 11, 2018). Since then, we’ve become friends.
She’s also a heart transplant recipient. Not only is she younger than me, but she’s also more active than me. She does gymnastics, volleyball, and track.
We met at Denica’s Real Food Kitchen, which is a cafe that does a lot of brunch stuff. Since I wanted to be pseudo-healthy, I got a salad.
We talked a lot. Izzy’s medications have significantly reduced since her transplant. On top of that, she’s always being active and has almost never been sick. She’s always careful in school.
If she’s at a playdate or sleepover, she makes sure to grab her medication or have her mom bring her meds. So she’s very responsible.
We also talked about my driver’s license and college. I’m in SAT Prep class right now and it sucks. It takes up all my time and I can’t even update my blog.
For my driver’s license, I’m pretty lazy about driver’s ed so at this point I’m just going to wait until I’m 18 to get my permit.
It was a pretty good day meeting Izzy again. She asked me if I’m going to go to transplant camp, and I said I would. She said it’s a lot of fun, and that it’d really be great.