Mo Khan's Outlet!: My first surgery at 43: cervical discectomy

This year, 2021 was always going to be the year of many changes for me. I took a leap of faith in disrupting myself by switching to a new world of work altogether. I relocated to a new city with my family, starting over again having no family or close connections in Cape Town. My kids all going through teenage phase, having uprooted leaving behind their last 10 years of growth for new beginnings. My wife too, left her community and lifestyle behind to support my work ambitions and personal adventures. I thought I was prepared for the disruption (despite the challenges of covid-19, I'd resigned and found new work in 2020 and relocated provinces in the same year during second wave)... but I didn't quite expect disruption to my own personal health front.

This health challenge called me to inspect yet again my priorities and focus. I knew 2021 will call for increased work hours as part of my ramping up to new company culture, new domain, timezone differences, that my focus would be more work than family or even my own individual interests for that matter.

So I'd started experiencing some discomfort in my right arm from July/ August. Experienced severe pain, pins and needles that made it quite impossible to focus at work, sit at desk or even function outside of work normally - without medicating for the pain. Took to painkillers at first, thinking it a temporary situation. Three weeks passes (I'm stubborn like that) before decided to consult a GP, suspected a bad pinches nerve or slipped-disc, so had me in a neck brace for 2 months and some interesting pain killers. Problem with nerve meds and pain killers is that it kinda slows everything down, best to take at night and getting the timing right also makes for an interesting experiment.

After two months of neck brace, the severe pain was replaced by mild pins & needles and dull pains. Yeah, I'm on my way to recovery or so I thought. Then the pain came back, with a vengeance. Not having a decent night's sleep for months, waking up with a sore arm each morning, not being able to go thoughout my day without some kind of pain relief, some days pain was 8/10, others 4/10...started to add up and take its toll on my overall mental and physical well-being.

Went for MRI. Diagnosis: you need surgery but it's up to you. If you can manage the pain and adapt to a lifestyle disruption then you can decide not to have surgery.

I needed some time. Decided to take another course of higher dose of nerve and pain killers. I never had an operation in my life, I wasn't going to start now! It's the spine, I grew up with some strong biases "Don't ever go near the neck/spine...once you put knife it's all downhill from there"...my default programming, innate fears unjustified but made up my belief system nonetheless.

I sought other opinions, some friends had similar experiences ended up recovering with physiotherapy and chiropractic manipulations. I tried physio, it for worse. I went to a chiropractor, who had the best bedside manner I've ever experienced. He looked at my MRI, sat me down and explained the seriousness of the issue. In his professional assessment, there's very little he could do. In his personal opinion, he advised surgery.

Watershed moment.

Screw it let's do it! Time to be like water, go with the flow. Trust in Qadr. Shed old fears. Embrace change. Have courage. Be brave. Prioritize myself for once!! So I decided to go all-in and have the surgery: cervical discectomy

insha'Allah. God willing. I took the necessary precautions nonetheless (made sure my life's paperwork was up-to-date, what to do in emergency rehearsed with my wife, etc.) General anaesthetic, I'll be out for 4 hours. Anything could happen...thankfully nothing happened. Shukr Alhumdulillah!

But what do I do about my work commitments? Can I just drop everything in 2 days and leave, even though so much urgent projects are underway?

We've been planning an off-site strat session and team building in another country. It would be the first time we'd meet our bosses and peers face-to-face. The journey is 33+ hours travel in coach/economy that I wasn't looking forward to, very uncomfortable...so I asked to upgrade my seats based on medical reasons, economy premium - sweet! As much as I'd committed to the travel and workshops, deep down I was still concerned about being in physical pain dampening my contributions to the workshops.

A week before the planned trip, Omicron covid-19 variant broke news. I was in two minds about the trip, didn't want to risk getting stuck in the US, missing my planned surgery. As luck would have it, flights were automatically cancelled due to countries closing their borders to South Africa. I saw this as a sign not to squander the opportunity to have my surgery done much earlier.

I prioritized my health and personal wellbeing ahead of work.

I actually felt bad doing this last-minute, but it honestly felt like the right thing to do. Even though I did not square things off face-to-face with my manager, I did have a 1:1 with my skip-level boss who was more than empathetic and supportive. I felt my direct reports had things under control and could be trusted.

The recovery period is between 4-6 weeks, the longer I leave it, the later in 2022 I'll start to recover...so I left work all behind in the capable hands of my direct reports, mailed my boss and went all in on focusing on my health and recovery.

It's been a week since my surgery but am on the road to recovery, albeit a little slowly. The pain in my right arm that crippled me earlier this year is no longer there. I have a scar on my neck and an alien foreign device as a new part of my body. It will be a while until I start hiking or cycling again, and I have to let the healing process take its time.

As I write this, I do feel a little sense of regret having missed out on team building, strategic planning and operational planning events, even missed out on a big AWS outage post Re:invent but hey...when it comes to life, one has to prioritize life first ahead of work.

Health and well-being comes first. Work is lower priority, work will always be there...

I've learnt that physical pain must be treated before it becomes an issue impacting lifestyle and work. A grumpy colleague in pain, who's head might be floating on meds is harmful to the team and business. Just as much, if not more, a grumpy father in pain is not good to be around the family either!

Here's my MRI: