This week we present two stories from people who lost loved ones and had to rebuild themselves.

Part 1: Massih Moayedi survives cancer, but the recovery throws his life off track.

Part 2: After his 20-year-old daughter dies suddenly, Paul Battista has to relearn what his role in life is.

Neuroscientist Massih Moayedi studies pain, a job that raises eyebrows at parties and sometimes prompts the confused response: "What kind of paint?" His research actually focuses on understanding how pain is processed in healthy individuals, and where the differences lie for those with chronic pain. He is now an assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Dentistry, and Co-Director of the Centre for Multimodal Sensorimotor and Pain Research, but his path to pain research was a personal one.

Paul Battista holds Bachelor and Masters degrees from the University of Waterloo and leads the financial services practice for EY Canada. In the wake of the tragic loss of his daughter in 2017 as a result of a flawed diagnostic protocol, he founded the Leah Battista Foundation (leahbattista.org) dedicated to carrying out work that was destined to become Leah’s life legacy had she lived. To that end, her Foundation is dedicated to improving, enriching and empowering the lives of youth and the disadvantaged through health and education, the arts and social entrepreneurship. To learn more about Leah’s kind and generous spirit and to consider supporting the Foundation that has been created in order to continue to help carry on her work, please visit leahbattista.org and follow the Foundation on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/leahbattistafoundation/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/leahbattistafoundation

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