From Michele: A glance at someone and you already think you know who they are. Yet, oftentimes more than not, you miss out on who they really are. You don’t know what they have been through and/or what they are going through today. That’s why it’s always so important to be kind to EVERYONE you meet.
So I’d like to introduce you to Sabrina. She calls herself a budding optimist. Check out what she’s all about below.
My name is Sabrina and I’m a budding optimist.
Why do I call myself a “budding optimist”? You see, I’m not an optimist by nature. I don’t automatically see the bright side of things or find the silver lining in every cloud. Positivity is my work in progress. I’m just a budding optimist trying to learn the secrets to happiness and live my life to the fullest. I started on my quest for optimism 12 years ago. I was just 19 then. That summer—a few months after my 19th birthday, while I was still relishing in the glory of freedom and youth—my life took an unexpected turn for the worst.
Being Diagnosed with Leukemia
One day, I visited the doctor’s office because my period had been irregular for a while. After confirming that I wasn’t pregnant, the doctor made a last-minute decision to check my blood work to rule out the possibility of a hormone issue. What she thought was a hormone imbalance turned out to be something much more sinister.
It was Leukemia—cancer of the blood.
And that was the beginning of a long period of darkness in my life where tests, procedures, and medication became my daily routine while fear, anxiety, and hopelessness took over my life. But miraculously, I came through. And not just once, but twice.
Two Rounds of Leukemia…
The Leukemia relapsed after staying dormant for almost two years after the initial treatments. In 2009, I underwent a bone marrow transplant to cure the relapsed cancer. I’ve been cancer-free ever since.
Like phoenix rising from the ashes, when I made it through the darkness I found myself better than ever in every way—not only was I physically and mentally stronger, I was also more grateful, confident, and optimistic. I became a budding optimist.
How did this transformation happen? Before I tell you the rest of my story, let’s start at the beginning.
My Early Life: Before Leukemia
I was born in 1988 in central China. From an early age, Life at home was tumultuous. One of my earliest memories from my childhood was my parents having a huge fight and my father threw my favourite cup—it was green with a butterfly etched on the outside—at my mother. The cup hit the ground and shattered to pieces. It made a dent in our floors and also in my heart.
My parents divorced when I was 5. My father left one day and didn’t come back. My mother later found out that he ran away with a woman whom he had met at a dance hall and they had carried on an affair for several months.
I loved my father as a child. He was adventurous, outgoing, and fun. It crushed my world when he left. I became withdrawn, sensitive, and distrusting. To this day, I’m still working on breaking down the wall I’d built around myself.
When I was 10 years old, my parents got back together. They decided to have a fresh start somewhere far away from the world they knew.
Moving to Canada…
“We’re going to Canada!” They told me one day. I was overjoyed. I had hoped—we had all hoped—that Canada would be our chance to start over as a united family.
But once we landed in Canada, our hopes diminished almost as quickly as our jet lag.
Those Painful Teenage Years
He first laid his hands on her just a couple months after we came to Canada. They had an argument while we were at a church event welcoming newcomers to the country. He became so angry he kicked her—in the house of God. Life was not easy for new immigrants, but there was no excuse for what he did, or what he continued to do for the next few years.
Over time the beatings became more frequent and more violent. My mother—like many victims of domestic violence—chose to stay silent. She loved him—despite all the philandering and brutality—she loved him.
I spent my teenage years in the painful throes of domestic violence.
I protected my mother whenever I could. There were times when I shielded her with my own body against his anger. Other times I had to scream and shout at the top of my lungs for it to stop. There were times I was so blinded by hatred I wanted to hurt him.
My father finally left again when I was 16. This time, instead of crying out for him, all I felt was exhaustion and relief.
At last, I thought, life would be calm.
But little did I know the calm would be so short-lived.
Life Deals Another Blow
In September 2006 I started my life as a freshman at university. I felt it was my chance for a fresh start.
I made new friends who didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t have the most fashionable clothes or that I cared about academics more than the latest gossip. Back in highschool I had always felt like I was in the margins, but not in university. I felt I belonged there.
Soon, I fell madly in love. I met Tony through a couple of new friends and we instantly hit it off. We became a couple right before Halloween of 2006.
For the next several months I was riding on a kind of high I’d never experienced before in my life. Life was so exciting and full of promise.
I thought I would follow the same trajectory I had always dreamed I’d follow—meet the love of my life, we’d get married a couple years after we graduate, and have a nest of our own with children that take on our best traits.
And then life—out of nowhere—hit me with another blow.
In July 2007 I received the diagnosis that I had Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Somehow, for no apparent reason, a chromosome in my DNA—chromosome 16—decided to replicate in a funny way. And because of that seemingly small mistake, I now had cancer.
When September 2007 rolled around, I wasn’t back at school with the rest of my peers. I was bald, weak, and on the verge of depression.
Because of the nature of Leukemia and how it affects the immune system, I couldn’t go back to school, or any public space where there’s a large crowd for that matter. I couldn’t risk catching a virus or getting an infection when even the common cold had the potential to kill me.
That Fall and Winter were the longest and coldest seasons of my life.
Getting Back on My Feet Only to Fall Down Again
The doctors finally gave me the all clear after more than 8 months of treatment.
I started to exercise and rebuild my strength. I was getting stronger and feeling better with each passing day. In May of 2008 I went back to university to catch up on my studies.
Slowly but surely, my life returned to its original orbit.
But the fear of cancer was always there.
For a long period of time I latched onto that fear with obsession.
I developed a strange habit of checking my arms for tiny pinhead bruises—the kind of bruises that had covered both of my arms in the weeks leading up to the diagnosis. They were ominous signs of disease that I had brushed off once and they had haunted my mind ever since. I was determined not to miss them again.
It got to the point where I couldn’t stop myself from looking at my arms every 5 minutes.
This crippling fear didn’t dissipate until one day, a friend said something to me that woke me up. I started to let go of the fear and concentrated on moving forward. I was finally starting to reclaim my old life.
But just as soon as I got back on my feet, the ground beneath me suddenly fell away again.
In April of 2009 after a routine check up, I received the news I had feared the most—it looked like the Leukemia was coming back. This time, nothing could save me except a bone marrow transplant,.
The Light in the Darkness
In order for me to have a bone marrow transplant, I needed to find an unrelated donor whose cells would be a close genetic match. Normally siblings would be the best bet, but since I’m an only child I didn’t have that option.
My only chance of finding a match was through the world-wide bone marrow donor registry.
And miraculously, they found a match for me.
A match would typically come from donors of the same ethnic background as the patient, and because Asians are underrepresented in the donor registry, many Leukemia patients of Asian descent have a difficult time finding a match.
I saw with my own eyes how fellow patients of Asian descent struggled to find a match—and all too often, they ended up dying from complications of the disease before they could find one.
And yet despite all odds, there was a match for me.
That was the light in the darkness that gave me the hope to keep fighting.
In August 2009, I had my bone marrow transplant. Just 9 days after I received the donor cells, my body started to produce healthy blood cells again. It was truly a miracle.
Sabrina just before receiving a round of total body irradiation treatment days before her bone marrow transplant
Learning to be a Budding Optimist
After I recovered from Leukemia for the second time, I made a promise to myself that I would try to live my life to the fullest. I felt that was the only way I could ever pay back the kindness and generosity of those who supported me throughout my illness—my mother, Tony, my friends, the medical team, the volunteers, and the selfless donor who gave me a second chance at life.
It was tough at first to be positive.
For most of my life up until that point, I had been wallowing in self pity. I was accustomed to feeling sorry for myself for all the things that had gone wrong in my life—everything from my painful childhood to the untimely illness.
But I was determined to change. I knew in order for me to live a full and happy life, I needed to shift my mindset.
I read books and articles from leading psychologists on the subject of happiness, like Daniel Gilbert’s “Stumbling on Happiness” and Dr. Martin Seligman’s “Learned Optimism”. Their wisdom taught me that happiness and optimism, like a muscle, can increase in strength with exercise.
So I started to exercise my mind.
I learned to focus on things I could control and let go of the things I couldn’t.
I stopped complaining and learned to practice self-compassion and gratitude.
I filled my life with positive stories, thoughts, and people, and learned to distance myself from drama and negative energy.
And little by little, I became a budding optimist.
Choosing Happiness in the Face of Challenge
Today, I am in a good place. I married Tony in 2018 and began a new chapter in our love story. We love hiking, travelling, camping, and playing dodgeball together in a local hobby league with our friends.
But life is not without its challenges. Nearly 3 years ago I was diagnosed with a lung condition called Bronchiolitis Obliterans that affects a small percentage of patients who had undergone a bone marrow transplant.
Nobody thought I would ever develop this disease because I had recovered so well from my transplant. The condition completely slipped under the radar and if it wasn’t for a follow-up lung function test, it would have remained hidden until more serious symptoms of breathing difficulties presented themselves.
And once again, I had to make a choice. Do I let myself drown in fear and sadness or do I swim upstream with all my might towards happiness and optimism? I chose to swim.
Although I only have approximately 60% of the lung function someone my age would normally have, I don’t let it affect my life. I still do all the things I love to do and I try to make the most out of what I have.
In 2018 I started a blog called “The Budding Optimist” where I share my stories, reflections, and ideas with the world in hopes of inspiring people to live a healthy and happy life.
My goal is to have more people join me in this journey towards optimism and help those who are facing challenges of their own make the choice to be happy.