What doesn't kill us

“Hello can I talk to Vikas Agarwal?”

“Yes, this is Vikas.”

“I am Dr. John Smith from the Evergreen Hospital Oncology department. The results of the sample from the lump we extracted from your back have arrived. Can you please come to our oncology department tomorrow morning 9 AM?”

“Sure.”, I replied

I didn’t know what oncology was so I checked on Google. I then realized the gravity of the situation and tried to calm myself to not make any assumptions. Next morning, I went to the oncology department and my conversation with the doctor went something like this -

“We are sorry, that took us two weeks to get results. You see, we could not figure out what it was so we had to send the sample to the Cleveland Clinic. I’m afraid I have some bad news. The specimen we took out of your body was a tumor called hemangiopericytoma. It is extremely rare, only about a hundred people in the USA get affected by this each year. The five-year survival rate for this is only 25%. If the tumor were in your arm, we would have cut the arm off. If the tumor were in your leg we would’ve cut it off too. But, unfortunately, it is in your upper back which makes matters little complicated.”

At this point, I had a panic attack. I found it hard to breathe and I started getting lightheaded. I was wondering whether I was talking to a doctor or a butcher, cutting an arm off, cutting the legs off as if they meant nothing. I guess, I was more concerned about losing a limb than dying. 

Finally, I went through another round of surgery where the doctors removed a large part of muscles and tissue from my mid back. The wounds healed but the recovery was elusive. The missing muscles and tissue made it very hard for me to sit for extended period. At this point, I was depressed and wondering whether I would live rest of my life as an invalid. I went through physical therapy and continued with the exercise program. While A little bit of instability remained on my left side, my upper body strength improved significantly from before the surgery. To ensure a better survival rate, I did significant research into foods and lifestyle habits that can prevent cancer and other diseases. The habits my cancer scare inspired me to build help me to this day and will continue to help me for the rest of my life. 

Fast forward five years, I was in a team where I just wasn’t getting along well with my manager. We just had a new baby and let’s just say that with this manager, it became very hard for me to fulfill my duties as a father. It was a very stressful time for me and I decided to leave the team immediately. I ended up in a small international expansion team. I found the hiring manager to be thoughtful, honest and empathetic. That team was Amazon.in where I was the first engineering manager (There were other engineering managers in Amazon India business building Junglee.com). Not only did my team did some really important innovation for the Indian customers, more importantly I built relationships with some amazing people.  The lesson I learned was that people you work with are the biggest determinant of your happiness and your quality of work. Even today when I’m evaluating a team more than what I’ll be working on, what matters to me is who will I be working with. This is an advice that will never ever fail you. Don’t work with the jerks just because they’re doing “cool” stuff.

Beginning of 2019, I started having considerable nerve pain in my hands, arms and shoulders. I was diagnosed with bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. It was very hard to sleep at night and virtually impossible to type on the keyboard. My work required me to spend significant time on the keyboard. There is a saying – a healthy person wants 1000 things but an ill person wants only one thing. I went through various types of therapies but none helped. Then I started observing myself and experimenting with various postures and exercises. I was able to mitigate the pain to a considerable extent. As part of my self-treatment, I Improved the instability of my shoulder which had been lingering for over 15 years due to a sports injury. I also found that many people I know are suffering from similar issues to a varying degree and I have had the fortune to help some of them with my methods.

What lessons did I learn from these three experiences?

1)    Life is not an Instagram or linked-in feed. Behind one moment of inspiration, there are thousands full of pain, suffering and dejection. 

2)    You may dread hard times in life but they will come and knock you out cold. But each time, you will come out stronger and wiser. So, don’t dread them but expect them and develop the mindset so each time you face obstacle, you don’t have a panic attack. 

3)    You will learn a lot about yourself and about the world, and lessons learnt during these times will form the basis of principles you live by. 

4)    You will realize that you also have a duty to share your wealth of experiences (and learn from others we well) so may be together we can reduce the suffering of life just a little bit.