I have been walking for a long time; away from some challenges like Histiocytosis, but mostly towards an ideal. That ideal of me in twenty years rocking Joker green hair, bacon themed socks and a doctor’s coat, hiking through unknown forests.
I was diagnosed and treated at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH) with Histiocytosis at a young age, and it forced me to think about what’s important and how I really want to live each day. Sure it sounds cheesy, but it’s true.
One day, in third grade, I decided to eat at the LPCH cafeteria, and as I sat there, two surgeons walked by.
I heard one say, “The bypass was successful.”
The other responded, “I know she’ll make it.”
It wasn’t just their feat that struck me; it was one of the doctor’s Joker green hair (especially impressive given his age) and the other’s Spongebob dress shoes and bacon socks!
Those doctors answered my question on life’s priorities pretty well. I have worked with a singular focus to further my knowledge in engineering and medicine. The vitality part comes supposedly, in that tireless pursuit of knowledge, through internships or higher level coursework, but at that moment, in the LPCH cafeteria, vitality expanded to include a need to be atypical. I could be the best in my field, but what creates legends is individuality: personalities, both talented and awe inspiring, who apply what is required in academia to achieve what they could know in the world and beyond.
He had a cane in hand, white bowler hat on his head, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and yellow bowtie complementing his jet-black suit. That was my great-grandfather, a globetrotter, a businessman, and the most atypical 95 year-old lunatic I have had the privilege of meeting. A month before he passed at the age of 105, he wrote to me, ending his letter with the following quote:
Confucius wrote, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
May 2016, I presented my project, a point of care device that uses auto-fluorescent biomarkers to diagnose degenerative diseases, at the California State Science Fair. During the fair, a judge asked if I would test him using my device. Tentatively, I tested him, and the diagnosis read, borderline diabetic. I frantically began to apologize, then he confirmed he was pre-diabetic. Impressed, he asked if this was my first science fair.
I thought for a second and responded, “No sir, this is my thirteenth.”
My project won second place; however, all the while I wondered why I keep going back without hesitation. I thought back to my great-grandfather and his letter, “life is simple.”
I suppose that perspective on life is what matters; I do what I love, searching for that passion in everything from science fairs to bird photography. I like to think I have that restless gene my great-grandfather had; I’ll never know, but I’ll try to be my own atypical lunatic that the world will have the privilege of meeting.