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We Could All Learn A Thing Or Two From Henry Quinlan, Who Just Underwent Surgery To Remove A Brain Tumor

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Perspective is something that we lose from time to time. It happens. We all live busy lives. We all have to work or go to school, and have to maintain friendships and relationships. At times, some of those things can seem like a chore. But we’re all guilty of taking things in our lives for granted. We all have difficult days when it seems like the tiniest things can feel like the end of the world. They’re not, but they sure as hell can feel that way at times. I was having a bad day over something stupid — something that in the grand scheme of things doesn’t matter at all — and then I got this message on Twitter.

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Sure enough, two days after Henry underwent brain surgery, he posted a picture on his Instagram with his Section 10 shirt from his hospital bed.

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And he was smiling. A 19-year-old kid, who had just been dealt an unfathomable obstacle to overcome in his life, was smiling. When I saw that picture, I couldn’t help but think about how I would’ve reacted had I been in his position even now, never mind at his young age. How could this happen? Why did this happen? But I would soon discover that this was not Henry’s attitude at all. Not even close.

His father, Jack, reached out to me to arrange our meeting, and Saturday afternoon, I went to go visit him at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. It was a surprise, so I knew that just me being there wasn’t going to be enough to lift his spirits so I came bearing gifts. I made sure that he got hooked up with a new Saturdays Are For the Boys shirt, a Barstool button-up, and a Stoolies Vs. The World shirt. He was most certainly pleased with that.

Like I said, I only know how I would’ve reacted had I been in his position, and it would not have been well. But Henry’s attitude absolutely blew me away. He was laughing, he was smiling, he was joking around with the nurses, and he spoke with nothing but optimism. His dad even told me that the surgeon had to tell him to stop cracking jokes DURING the brain surgery that he was awake for. After he checked out his new shirts, I sat down and then Henry, his dad and I spent four hours in that hospital room talking about baseball all afternoon.

We talked about his memories of being at Fenway Park with his father on July 24, 2004 — the infamous A-Rod vs. Jason Varitek brawl that ended with a walk-off home run by Bill Mueller against Mariano Rivera. He told me about being at Game 1 of the World Series in 2004 with his dad and how he ended up on the Spanish broadcast somehow (he used to go by Jackson, his middle name).

He’s a pitcher, so he spoke glowingly about his enthusiasm for pitching mechanics and all of his favorite pitchers that he loves to watch, especially Pedro Martinez. We talked about how his father became a Red Sox fan and how it can be a tall task to raise a Red Sox fan when you’re living in New York. To be sure that he raised his son as a Red Sox fan, when Henry was little, instead of the Tooth Fairy paying a visit to the Quinlan house, every night following a Red Sox victory, his father would leave a baseball card under his pillow of the player who had the best game the night before for him to wake up to. I loved that.

When it was time to leave, his father took out his cellphone to take a picture of us together, so I started to walk over to his bedside. Henry didn’t want that. He didn’t want anyone thinking that he was unable to get up out of his bed. He didn’t want people to think that he was weak, because he damn sure was not. He sat up in his bed, put his feet on the hospital floor, and raised his 6-foot-4 frame right next to me to take the picture that would cap off our day together.

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I learned a lot from Henry and his father on Saturday. I realized that there are things in life that you cannot control, but what you can control is how you choose to react to them, how you choose to face them, and the attitude in which you face them with. I made a friend in the hospital room that day. Two friends, actually. They thanked me for coming, but it’s really me who should be thanking them.

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Of all the things that I learned on Saturday, there is one thing that I learned with absolute certainty, and that’s that Henry is gonna fight this thing like hell. He’s now home from the hospital, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind some words of encouragement from the Stoolies as he continues to recover, so you can hit him up on Twitter (@2013WorldChamps) and on Instagram (henry_quinlan).

And just like I did, I’m sure you could also learn a thing or two from him, too.