Chinatown, Toronto
Frozen lake and warm sunshine
We did a road trip to Utah and Arizona last month. It was the first trip we took since the pandemic, and since Taylor became well enough to travel.
Our trip started in the city of Utah, where we then drove to the snowy mountains of Yellowstone national park.
View from our bed & breakfast
Winding roads. My personal favourite.
Did I mention it was mid May already?
Many wild bisons, and other wildlifes.
One night, I came down grab my camera from the car. As I unlocked the car, I thought why not go for a drive. I drove into the sunset, with windows open and warm breeze in my hair. The road was smooth. The warm sunshine bouncing off the frozen lake and made everything glorious. There was no one else besides myself. I slowed down the car, and wanted to keep driving and never turn back. I wondered what it was like after the next corner, and the one after.
We all go thorough a great deal of sufferings in life. We all have a lot of agendas, a lot of to-dos, and responsibilities. We play a role to our family, to our company. But at that moment, I felt that I was finally being with myself.
Summer, 2021
This summer feels like I am finally seeing light, after a very long night.
I also got a new camera. And I have been taking it out whenever we go for walks. These photos are captured near my neighborhood in Toronto during our walks.
Life is good again.
Dark side, bright side
Back in April, Taylor was sent home from the hospital. She stayed at the Toronto Western Hospital for over a month, where numerous tests were conducted on her to try and figure out what’s going on in her brain. Unfortunately, all the tests that had come back were inconclusive. We were living in a limbo not knowing what is really going on or what to expect for the future. Meanwhile, she started eating less, speaking less and moving less. She started becoming more confused. She would go through a full day without uttering a single word. She struggled going up and down the stairs. Her doctor wanted to perform a second brain biopsy on her - which is in his opinion the only way to diagnose. He called me three times to convince me. But I was hesitant. I didn’t want her to go through another open brain surgery/biopsy, given that it can be very well be inconclusive just like the first one she had.
On May 5 in the afternoon, she passed out on the couch in our living room. I had no choice but bringing her back to the emergency room, where I spent the night by her bed. She did the biopsy the next day and the rest is history.
These photos were taken recently with her in her workout cloths. Taylor used to be a gym rat. And now she is working to get back to her old self.
In the midst of summer
After two months of chemotherapy in the hospital, Taylor was finally in a good enough condition to go home briefly, before starting her next chemo next week.
It was a long-overdue Saturday in the midst of summer.
Making me breakfast like usual
Yum
During the chemotherapy, she had two different types of lines inserted into her body. In this photo, she was checking her PICC line. The insertion site gets itchy and inflamed very easily and we needed to manage that with care.
Poutine was tired as usual
Not today.
“Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you’re gonna get”
I think this sums up pretty well for everyone in the world in 2020. For me and my wife, Taylor, this is particularly true. Taylor came down with sickness in February. After countless of bloodwork, scans, and two brain surgeries, she was diagnosed with central nervous system lymphoma - a rare type of malignant brain cancer. These photos were taken between her 3rd and 4th chemo therapy cycle.
