Kirby's Study Journal

[Kirby]

Played a game for the AYD today. I got in a tough situation early on, but then made some success on top. I felt good about the game, but then:
1.) Failed to play the move to kill my opponent, due to oversight.
2.) Still seemed ahead, but failed to answer my opponent's threat and simply connect my group on the bottom during the endgame. He disconnected and killed it.

#2 seems to be a trend for me - that happened a little while ago when I played against that 2d on KGS. Seems that I like to ignore my opponent's threats in the endgame, even when they can kill me. Guess I should be more careful.

Meh.

Here's the game.

[Kirby]

What helped me in developing more "passion" for my actual job is to realize how good I am at it and how special my seemingly trivial gifts apparently are.

Thanks for your comment. It's a good point. It's true that it's easier to feel passionate about something or good about it when you have a bit of self-confidence in your skill. I have been trying to think this at work a bit (though, I'm a little distracted, because tomorrow is an important doctor's visit).

On the other end of the spectrum, if you are overconfident, it's easy to make mistakes - maybe like the one I did in the game I just posted near the endgame ("You can't cut and kill me - I'm invincible!!!11!").

I suppose, as with many things I'm finding, this too requires some sort of balance...

I spend my life trying to learn how to optimize things while in school, and then I go into real life and find out that I need balance. :-p

[Kirby]

Maybe I just don't want others to pursue more "serious" pursuits because then I will be forced to examine more closely if I really believe these things to be worthy of the time I spend on them.

Thanks for your comment, globulon. I think you make a good point. I'm reminded of something I believe HKA said a long time ago. It was something along the lines of, "I can enjoy go because it's so unrelated to my day job". I'm probably misquoting him, so I apologize to him if I am. But this is the gist of what I remember him saying. What I took away from it was that there is something about the "meaningless" nature of go that makes it appealing. If it's required and of real importance in real life, maybe it's less enjoyable?

[Kirby]

You'll have to decide for yourself whether go is good for you and your family. But whatever you do, make sure that you carve out time for rest and community. I think you'll find that the quality of your work and family life will decline without them.

I think it is a good thing. Arguing on the forum... maybe not so much. But definitely, go is an interesting pursuit, and I think I'll continue it.

[Kirby]

I've come to a new conclusion after reflecting on some of the comments here. While it may be "logical" to turn programming into my passion, I feel more comfortable emotionally with the following plan:

* While at work, do my job; do it well. It doesn't have to be a passion, but do my best.

* Have more confidence in my programming ability. I am a professional programmer, and I am skilled.

* Outside of my work responsibilities, being passionate about go is fine.

I think this is a fair balance, and I feel comfortable about it emotionally.

[Kirby]

Another loss. I knew my opponent - I met him at the US Go Congress in New York in 2014.



I didn't review it in depth, but a 3d was watching and was kind enough to go over a few things.

The general comment he had to both of us was that we both need to learn when to dial it down. We both kept going for maximum local profit, and ignore the global situation. This is a common problem I have. I don't know how to compromise. Inseong has brought it up repeatedly in all of my recent reviews, but I don't have the mental power to stop it in the situation.

Compromise feels like losing to me. So I refuse to compromise, even when things don't work. This results in instability. I beat opponents when things happen to work. And I lose when they don't.

I'm reminded of Kageyama's talk about that guy that was so aggressive, and then he showed him a ladder that didn't work. He asked if he'd play out the ladder. "No," he replied. "Why not?" "Because it doesn't work."

That's the habit I'm in, but it's very difficult to break out of. I don't know how to win a game by compromise

[Kirby]

In a recent discussion, I brought up the fact that I never could make my way through Train Like a Pro: Volume 2. I will make an attempt to do one section every day, starting tomorrow, and log it here for accountability.

I hope not to miss a day. I will start tomorrow.

No idea if that book will teach me how to compromise.

[Kirby]

This post just denotes completing day 1 of TLAP. I'll aim to do each weekday.

[Kirby]

Day 2

[Kirby]

Sooner than expected, I failed to continue with TLAP, and messed up my schedule. I'll try to get back on track tonight.

[Kirby]

I've used this study journal over the past few years as a way to record my go games, review them, discuss go related topics, philosophize (somehow, I'm surprised that this is actually a word!), and sometimes simply to keep a journal of what's going on in my life.

For awhile now, I haven't made many posts. I haven't played a lot of go, other than the AYD - I'm still a member. I didn't elaborate on the reasons for this because they seemed personal, and not appropriate for a go forum.

But on the other hand, I'm a little drunk right now, with nobody else to talk to, and in some ways, posting here is a form of catharsis... So I kind of want to write something here just to ease my mind, but since it's not really go related, and somewhat personal, I'll put it in hide tags, so that those interested only in go-related conversation can opt out.

Those that have been here awhile may recall a post I made back on September 29, 2013: http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 29#p149229. It was a few days after my second son was born. His birthday was a few days earlier, September 25th, 2013. He just turned 3 last September. If I'm honest with everyone here, my wife and I were hoping for a girl for our second child. Our older son is a boy, so why not mix things up a bit? But as luck may have it, we had a boy.

As time progressed, however, I became very grateful for my second son. While both of my children are boys, they are very different. And in many ways, it's my second son that resembles me the most, both in behavior and in appearance. That doesn't really matter, I guess, but I would say that I have a special relationship with my younger son that's different than what I have with my first son. Even though they are both sons, they are both very important to me.

I'm a software engineer at Microsoft. Many of my coworkers have children, but for a long time, I've felt of myself as more of a "family person" than my coworkers. My job is important to me, but the time I have to spend with my kids is really precious. I didn't want to have kids, in fact, before having them. But once I did, they became the most important people in my life. Both my older and younger son. They're really special - even if they're pretty young (4 years old and 3 years old, respectively).

Sometime in June of 2016, my younger son (2 years old, at the time) was constipated. I was busy at work - fiscal year was almost over, and reviews were coming up. Had to finish up a project I was working on (a hybrid join operator in SQL), and when I heard the news, I wasn't too concerned. Kids get constipated. So I kept going to work, and my wife and my two sons went to the doctor. Yep, doctor said it was constipation, gave some sort of medicine. We moved on. I was still stressed at work.

About a week later, I was giving a bath to my kids, and I noticed a mark on my younger son's lower back. It looked weird. And he was still constipated. I told my wife, and she took them into the doctor again. Still constipation, said the doctor. I wasn't totally satisfied with that answer, so I took a picture and sent it into their office. No response, so we scheduled another appointment. My wife went in again, I kept going to work. Again, the doctor mentioned constipation. I was a little annoyed, so we scheduled a 4th appointment for later that week. I went with my wife and kids this time.

Again, the doctor (a different one this time), was talking about constipation. Finally, I told her to just look at the mark on my son's back. By this time, it was about the size of a softball. At that point, the doctor changed her tone: we needed to go to the emergency room.

So I sent a quick email to work, then went to the emergency room with my family. I felt some peace knowing that we'd finally get this thing taken care of. Obviously, something other than constipation was going on. Finally, the doctors could fix the problem...

But we were in the emergency room for a long time. Several doctors came in and out. Many were surprised at the size of the mark on my son's back. My little, two year old baby's back. The back of one of my best friends... A doctor came up to me, and told me that he was concerned that the mark on my son's back was a mass. Okay, I said. A mass. What does that mean?

After several hours, the doctors had an answer for my family: my two year old friend, son, and baby had cancer. A stage 4 germ cell tumor, originating in his pelvis, and spreading throughout his lungs. I learned that around June 30th of this year.

Naturally, I was devastated. This baby - this friend of mine - this funny, young kid, who had just started talking earlier in the year - had cancer. His life was on the line.

Sometime later, I recall being in a room with one of the department oncologist heads, along with a few other doctors. He seemed calm, unconcerned, and unworried. He explained about the cancer, and told me that it was quite curable. There's a 4-round chemotherapy treatment that kids go through (BEP chemotherapy, same as for testicular cancer, which is basically the same type), and after that, about 80%~90% of kids are cured. After kids get to remission, there's about a 25% chance it will come back at some time, and there are even things you can do at that stage, he told me.

Still stressful. But some relief.

The months of July, August, and September consisted of these 4 rounds of chemotherapy. It's the reason I skipped out on the US Go Congress this year. A "round" means staying in the hospital getting pretty strong medicines for 5 days. Chemotherapy has the side effect of killing your immune system, so for a couple of weeks after those 5 days of medicine, your immune system goes to zero, and you have high risk of infection.

Over the course of those 3 months, we had several ups and downs. After the first round, my son caught some sort of infection, we had to go to the ER, and they gave him antibiotics. His second round of chemotherapy was delayed. Since his tumor was so large, for the first half of that time, he had a catheter for urination. Couldn't really walk.

It was a very depressing time.

As time went on, however, things started looking up. The tumor was shrinking. He could urinate on his own, they took the catheter back. He started playing like a healthy boy again. I started to be encouraged.

Furthermore, there is a tumor marker - a protein emit by the tumor called "AFP". As chemotherapy went on, it was encouraging to see the significant decrease in this number. A normal value is below 12 ng/mL for his age. At the start of his diagnosis, he was at 156,000. It kept going down 23,400 --> 540 --> 45 --> 23 --> down to 8!

After hitting a normal level, the tumor was small enough in his pelvis to remove. The marks on his lungs were still visible in a CT scan, but were much smaller. Since his AFP was a normal level (8 < 12), doctors recommended that we stop chemotherapy.

It was a very happy time. We had made it... Until the next week. His AFP rose to 13. Then to 76. Then to 764... Then to 1040. The cancer was "back". Or maybe it was never really gone.

I should tell you that the thing about cancer is that you realize how powerless you are in the situation. How could I help my son? My mind has asked this question repeatedly over the last several months. The best I could do was to read up on research papers related to this type of cancer.

I found similar conclusions that the doctors had told me. There's about an 80%~90% chance of survival, even if it's stage 4 cancer... But... That rate drops significantly in the event that the cancer comes back. If the first four rounds of chemotherapy don't work, it's not good news. Maybe like 50% odds.

So anyway, doctors came up with a new plan to save my son. "Salvage" chemotherapy as some might call it. Since the first 4 rounds were not completely effective, they decided on two more rounds of a different combination of medicines. And after that, two rounds of "intense" chemotherapy, which is much stronger.

In order to accommodate "intense" chemotherapy, we need to collect my son's stem cells. I give injections of a medicine every day to boost his stem cell growth, doctors would do another surgery to implant a device to extract the cells.

So after "round 5" using the new medicines, I did this every day. We monitored his numbers. But they didn't get high enough to extract cells.

Doctors abandoned that plan, and decided to change the medicine combination again with "round 6". Starting this Thursday, I'll be doing injections again, and we'll see if we can get his stem cells. In an effort to do "intense" chemotherapy afterwards to "really" get rid of the cancer.

After 5 rounds, his AFP is 681. A long way to go from the normal level of 12 or lower. And it's unclear whether we'll actually be able to collect stem cells after this round of chemotherapy.

As an added bonus, the chemotherapy so far has resulted in some loss of hearing, and some loss of liver function for my son... A small price to pay, I guess, if he can live in the end...

So this week has been a hospital week. Finishing up "round 6" of chemotherapy. I don't know if we'll get to a good result. I've started to come to terms with the fact that my son might die.

One of my best friends, an innocent companion, and a guy that looks up to me, who I love... He might die soon.

There's still hope that he won't, of course.

But the permanent state of going back and forth - will he die? Will he make it? Will his AFP go up? Will it go down? Will the cancer go away? Will the chemotherapy kill him?

It's difficult to keep thinking about.

I hope the best for my son. I hope he makes it. There's a chance that he will, and also a chance that he won't. Sometimes going to work makes me feel better, since I don't think about it as much. Sometimes go has the same effect.

Today, I drank a little bit, and felt like sharing my story. I hope you don't mind.

But I put it in hide tags, anyway, so reading is optional!

I guess writing my feelings has helped a little bit. Everyone else in my family is asleep right now, so I felt like I wanted someone to talk to.

I guess L19 is the "person" I chose for today.

[EdLee]

Hi Kirby. It was nice you made it to Cotsen.
And the nice little chat in front of the tasty food truck.
And the brief game review. ( Please also see PM. )



_______________
For others. If you'd like to reply to Kirby, you may find this helpful:

How not to say the wrong things

[Jhyn]

Hi Kirby,

I am not sure I have in me the words to bring you any kind of comfort as I have never lived through anything that can compare.
For the little that I know you I am sure that you did and are doing the most that you can for your son. The intensity of the feeling of powerlessness is almost tangible in your words. I want to urge you not to stop, because there is no rejecting the events that are dealt to us, but your kindness, your energy, simply doing all that you can will go a long way for your son, for you and for your family.

[ez4u]

Brian,

We are with you and your family. Never doubt that when you need a 'person' to talk to!

[dfan]

Thank you for sharing your story. I'm rooting for you and your son.