Updated and republished with the permission of the author, Rob Preston
For most of Ling-Fei Wu’s early years, life came relatively easy.
She was a happy child growing up in Taiwan, the youngest of four children, and a model student, continuing through her high school and college years in the U.S., where early on she learned English on the fly. After graduating with an MBA in 1991 from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, Ling-Fei headed to California, excelling in finance roles at Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, and Target franchise Mervyn’s, at which time she met her future husband, Hsinyu, a biomedical science PhD. Shortly after getting married, the couple decided to move back to Taiwan to look after their parents, advance their careers (Ling-Fei as a financial analyst at Oracle, Hsinyu as an assistant professor at National Taiwan University), and start a family.
Their first child, Katelyn, now attending UC Berkeley’s Mechanical Engineering graduate program, “was the easiest kid to raise because she was always very happy and learned everything very fast,” Ling-Fei says. “It was like, ‘What an easy life.’ I never had hardship and always enjoyed the best things.”
But the couple’s second child, Dylan, about five years younger than Katelyn, turned their world upside down.
Born with what his doctors called Multi-Symptom Disorder, Dylan had trouble breathing because of a small hole in his heart, could not swallow on his own, and had hearing problems. Ling-Fei and Hsinyu were required to take over their son’s care just a month after he was born, due to space constraints at the hospital’s intensive-care unit. They proceeded to set up Dylan’s bedroom like a hospital unit, complete with heartrate and oxygen monitors, and became adept at the latest tube-feeding and other caring techniques they were taught at the ICU. With the help of Ling-Fei’s live-in parents, two nannies who each worked 12-hour shifts, and the moral support of their Buddhist master, Ling-Fei and Hsinyu started tending to Dylan’s every need.
“In the first year, I could never sleep through the night,” Ling-Fei recalls. “It was really hard, because you always heard the machines in the other room beeping. I didn’t sleep with the baby, because I had to go to work, but we had the nanny sleep with him. Dylan couldn’t be left alone for any time of the day.”
‘Eyes wide open’
Multiple surgeries followed during Dylan’s infancy and early childhood years, starting with open-heart surgery at 5 months old. “I remember he got wheeled out after nine hours of surgery,” Ling-Fei says. “When we saw him, his eyes were wide open, and I thought, ‘This baby has such a powerful spirit and a strong will. I know he’s going to survive.’”
After his heart surgery, there were ear and throat surgeries, as well as ongoing physical, speech, and occupational therapies. Trips to the hospital were frequent and progress was slow—Dylan couldn’t lift his head early on and didn’t start walking until he was 3 years old, due to his frail condition. “But he was always such a brave boy,” Ling-Fei says.
Now 17 years old, in his last year of the local high school’s special education program, Dylan is able to communicate through a simple sign language that his teachers and family members are all learning with him. He is also developing his athletic abilities, swimming and running. “We see Dylan making progress every day and are blessed to know that he has a bright future,” Ling-Fei says.
Giving back
As for Ling-Fei, her experiences with Dylan reignited her passion for volunteering. Back in California, she and Hsinyu used to spend their Saturday afternoons at a nursing home, going room to room singing for the elderly patients. Now she volunteers for an organization called Taiwan Sunshine, whose quarterly My Hero program, which she helped set up in Taipei, runs a day of sporting activities for special needs kids of all ages. Ling-Fei says that when she retires from Oracle, her employer of more than 20 years, she hopes to start a foundation for special needs children, “with programs and resources to provide better care for these angels.”
What are the main life lessons Ling-Fei has learned on her journey with her family over the past 17 years? “Appreciate all that you have,” she says. “Stay positive during life’s peaks and valleys.”
Ling-Fei adds: “I’m always very busy, taking care of my kids and now my parents and working very hard at Oracle. People always ask me, ‘How do you juggle all those responsibilities and still have so much energy?’ It is because I enjoy what I am doing and I am always looking at things from a positive angle. Even though raising a child with special needs is very challenging, I always say to myself, ‘God gave me him for a mission, because I’m capable, and he is a charm to us.’ He has brought so much to all our lives.”
Does Ling-Fei carry any of those experiences to her work at Oracle, where she now manages a team of 37 as VP of OFD Global Finance Operations?
She says she tries to maintain the right balance between her work and personal lives and is grateful to the company—and particularly her manager, Senior VP Anil Vora—for their support and for giving her “a lot of room.” Ling-Fei doesn’t think a local company would be so flexible. “That’s one reason I enjoy my job so much,” she says.
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