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Coming back from Asia

Leaving behind the whirlwind of private and professional life in Shanghai was far more difficult than I had anticipated. The city had a way of swallowing you whole—its speed, its noise, its relentless energy. Stepping out of it felt like stepping out of a moving train. My first attempt at “adjusting” was a holiday in Penang, Malaysia. To be honest, it was a holiday only on paper. My mind was elsewhere, and my mood stubbornly refused to follow the palm trees and turquoise waters.

When we finally returned to Germany on a quiet Sunday morning, I expected a gentle re-entry into normal life. Instead, I spotted a white tent pitched in my garden. Before I could process what on earth it was doing there, the neighbours stormed in from all directions—into the house, the garden, and the tent, which, as it turned out, was fully equipped with food and drinks. A surprise welcome-home party. It felt like being tossed back into the boat just when I thought I’d washed up on shore. And surprisingly, it helped.

Back at the office—relocated while I was away, naturally—I’d been recalled to handle a major project. Unfortunately, “major” did not mean “well-organised.” Everything moved at glacial speed, and my frustrations grew in direct proportion.

Having handed back my company car during my Shanghai years, I eventually had to face the fact that I needed a replacement. The search didn’t take long: I ended up with an almost brand-new black Mini Cooper.

I picked it up from the dealer, and within minutes I felt perfectly at home behind the wheel. It drove beautifully—quick, responsive, and gripping the road with the enthusiasm of a go-kart. Later on, I upgraded the summer tyres and fitted oversized wheels, giving the car the unmistakable stance of a Formula 1 wannabe.

Small pleasures, perhaps. But very satisfying ones.

What kept me sane was my ongoing contact with the new organisation in India, which had been under my supply chain responsibilities during my stint as Asia Pacific Supply Chain Director. They needed support, and I needed something meaningful to dive into. So I booked a trip.

But before Modipuram, we decided to escape to Guadeloupe and Martinique. It was our first time in the Caribbean, and quite an initiation. I remember being permanently thirsty—thankfully, the islands are generous with their exotic fruit juices. At one point I even managed to drive our tiny rental car straight into a ditch. Within minutes, four strong locals appeared and simply lifted it back onto the road, as if this was a perfectly standard Caribbean roadside service.

The beaches made up for everything: warm, calm, and sometimes completely deserted. One of them, as it turned out, was also a nudist beach. We didn’t realise this until a few strolls down the shore, when the absence of swimsuits became… unmistakable. It was all perfectly natural for the regulars, of course, but for us it felt just a little bit weird—like we had accidentally wandered into a private club without knowing the dress code. Or rather, the lack of one.

We returned home, and the very next day I boarded another plane—this time to India. That kind of hopscotching across time zones had somehow become “normal life” for me. After a week I flew back again. Hardly had I unpacked when my wife left for England to visit her mother.

And then it happened.

A sharp, sudden pain in my chest. The world spun, went dark, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in an ambulance. Someone calmly informed me that I was in the middle of a massive heart attack.

Convalecense

All of this, of course, happened in the middle of the night. Had my younger son not returned home that evening, I might not be here to tell the tale at all. When I finally woke up the next morning, I discovered that my face was black and blue. I must have hit something hard when I collapsed, though I have absolutely no memory of it.

While recovering in the emergency ward, the doctors informed me that I had diabetes—and that it had played a major role in the heart attack. Two stents were needed to get everything flowing again. That very day I decided, once and for all, to stop smoking. It felt like a line had been drawn.

Within a short time I was back on my feet—unsteady, tired, but undeniably happy to still be standing. A couple of friends from the office dropped by, bringing kind words and the usual mixture of concern and curiosity. My wife arrived a few days later; I had insisted she stay with her mother in England and not rush back, but eventually she came anyway.

I was sent home within the week, with a full recovery plan in place: daily outpatient sessions in Hannover for physiotherapy, monitoring, and general advice on how to keep myself alive a bit longer. This routine lasted a full month, with my wife driving me back and forth. In the meantime, I also met with a cardiologist, had a thorough examination, and began a strict regimen of medication.

About eight weeks later, I returned to work. People were astonished to see me back so soon. But the truth is, I felt better than I had in years. I was on a proper diet, I had stopped smoking, and despite the diabetes, I felt… well, almost brand new.

Afterthoughts

Before leaving for Asia, during my full medical check-up, I had already been labelled as “pre-diabetic” and gently advised to slow down, lose a bit of stress, and do some sport. Naturally, I did the exact opposite. I sped up instead of slowing down, worked harder instead of easing off, and treated physical exercise as something that happened to other people.

Looking back, I realise how extraordinarily lucky I was. The heart attack could easily have struck on that remote beach in Martinique—nobody around, no phone signal, only the sound of the waves (and a handful of carefree nudists). Or, even worse, it could have happened during the last trip to India, where the distances, the chaos, and the unreliable medical access would have made survival a much more delicate matter.

Fate, it seems, gave me a second chance. And I took it.

I swore to myself never again to wish my life away. Never again would I say, “I wish we were already at such-and-such date in the future.”
Those words suddenly felt reckless—an invitation to skip over days that might turn out to be precious.

From then on, I promised to take each day as it comes, and to enjoy it for what it is. Not perfect, not always easy, but undeniably mine.

Life goes on

After this rather frightening episode, my enthusiasm for throwing myself into office life had evaporated. A colleague of mine had taken over the lead on the big project, and frankly, that suited me perfectly. I wasn’t thrilled with the way the whole thing was being handled anyway—far too administrative, far too stiff, far too… not me.

Slowly but surely, the idea of early retirement began to look less like a distant fantasy and more like a sensible life choice. I even toyed with the idea of volunteering for redundancy should the chance ever arise. The answer came back swiftly and firmly: absolutely not, far too valuable. Mildly flattering, I suppose.

By the end of 2011—sixteen months since I had reluctantly left Shanghai—New Year drifted past without much fanfare. Life at the office had become mind-numbingly dull. No exciting projects, no travel, no spark. I felt like a dolphin in an aquarium: alive, yes, but swimming in circles, bored out of my mind. January and February rarely win prizes for excitement, but this was a particularly uninspiring stretch.

One Saturday in mid-February, we drove into Hannover to run a few errands before hosting lunch for friends and family the next day. The car felt sluggish, as if it shared my mood, and refused to respond properly when I put my foot down. Inside the department store, wandering through the China section, I suddenly felt wobbly and had to sit down. Still very much on my insulin-learning curve, I suspected a touch of hypoglycaemia. The most logical solution seemed to be lunch and a couple of beers next door.

Oddly, I kept dropping my knife. Back home, exhausted, I headed straight to bed.

Sunday arrived, along with our guests. Lunch was pleasant, but again I found myself dropping my fork. I blamed the new medications and excused myself early.

Monday morning brought no improvement. We decided to stop by the local hospital for a quick check-up. “Quick” turned out to be wishful thinking. The moment we explained my symptoms, everything shifted into high alert. I was scolded rather severely, rushed into an MRI machine, and suddenly it was all panic. Within minutes I was in an ambulance, sirens wailing, blue lights flashing, speeding toward the specialist hospital in Hannover.

The diagnosis: I had blood leaking in my head. An emergency operation was required.

Not so simple

The team of surgeons and doctors looking after me turned out to be mainly from Syria—an entire unit of brain specialists. I had no idea Hannover even had such a hospital, let alone one staffed by people who clearly knew exactly what they were doing.

After another brain scan, they grew concerned about my blood-thinning and anticoagulant medication. Operating while I was still full of the stuff was asking for trouble. The plan, therefore, was to stop the medication for a couple of days and monitor me constantly. And by “constantly,” I mean every thirty minutes, day and night.

What had actually happened was this: when I fainted during my heart attack, I clearly hit my head rather hard—the black-and-blue marks made that obvious. But the impact had also caused damage inside the skull. The blood thinners then encouraged a very slow, persistent “leak,” which was now expanding and pressing dangerously on the left side of my brain. The symptoms were alarmingly similar to those of a stroke. Action was needed, and soon.

As scheduled, I was prepped for surgery. I remember being scared and shaky right up until the anaesthesia swept in and carried all fear away. They drilled, cleaned, and closed, leaving a drainage tube in place. Head operations are not my idea of fun, and the following days came with a generous supply of headaches. Still, I was well looked after.

A few days later, however, I experienced a strange spasm in my right hand. Back to the scanner I went. The verdict came swiftly: it’s still leaking — we need to operate again.

Within hours I was back in the operating theatre. This time they removed quite a substantial chunk of skull bone to clean the area properly before setting it back with special metal fasteners. Recovery was slow and unpleasant. It took me a good two weeks—probably more—to get past the worst of it. Once the stitches were finally removed, I was allowed home.

I then spent another three weeks more or less draped over the sofa, dealing with lingering headaches but gradually improving. Appointments with specialists and neurologists followed, along with a series of scans. Eventually, I was declared fit for therapy. My right hand was still unreliable and my sense of balance was dreadful.

All in all, I was out of action for almost six months.

Consultant

When I finally dragged myself back to the office, I discovered I had about as much to do as a lifeguard at the Olympic diving pool—technically present, but largely ornamental. There was clearly a concerted effort to shield me from anything more stressful than deciding which biscuit to have with my tea. It was workplace bubble wrap, and I’d been designated the fragile package.

This is when I made the executive decision to work from home. Call me a visionary, a pioneer, a prophet of the pandemic—I was basically patient zero of the remote work revolution, years before Covid made it mandatory and Zoom made us all realize how many of us don’t actually have proper lighting.

The beauty of it was elegantly simple: people could see my little green dot glowing online, but my actual physical location remained one of life’s great mysteries. Was I at my desk? In my pajamas? On a beach in Bali? The Schrödinger’s cat of corporate employees. Since most of my rather meagre portfolio of responsibilities involved projects abroad anyway, nobody seemed particularly bothered by my geographical ambiguity.

I’d pop into the office two or three times a week around lunchtime—just enough to be seen and, more crucially, to hoover up gossip like a Dyson at a sawmill. It was during one of these intelligence-gathering missions that I caught wind of a plan to resurrect our Indian operation and reopen a factory. Some new German chap in the organization was apparently leading the charge. That was all the invitation I needed. I immediately tracked him down and invited myself to the party.

I mention this because it became my standard operating procedure from that point forward: keep ears to ground, detect opportunities, infiltrate project. I’d essentially transformed myself into an internal consultant—a corporate mercenary, if you will. And if I may be so immodest, I was rather good at it.

On the road again

My immediate boss was fully aware of my newfound career as an office phantom and, while he’d been doing his best to shield me from excessive stress and the horrors of economy class, he approached me one day with a proposition. Would I be willing to accompany him to Quito for a few days? There were, apparently, “issues to be solved”—that wonderfully vague corporate euphemism that could mean anything from a minor filing problem to the building being on fire.

I could hardly refuse such an opportunity, could I? It would be like turning down free cake. So, visas duly procured and tucked into our pockets like golden tickets, we boarded KLM flights via Amsterdam bound for the oxygen-challenged heights of Quito.

I didn’t know a soul in the organization, which covered the entire Andean region and included a production plant down south in Cuenca. No pressure, then. For three solid days, the local teams paraded before me like contestants in a very earnest beauty pageant, presenting their organizations, processes, concerns, and presumably their deepest fears and childhood traumas. It was an information firehose, and I was expected to drink from it without drowning.

At the end of this marathon, the local CEO, my boss, and I convened for what I thought would be a polite recap meeting. I presented my findings, along with the necessary solutions and proposals I’d cobbled together. I watched their faces light up like Christmas trees, and then came the question: “How long would you need to sort it out?”

That’s when I realized I’d been expertly ambushed. This had clearly been orchestrated weeks in advance by these two corporate Machiavellis. But two could play that game. I surprised them by announcing “six months”—apparently far less than they’d anticipated—and before I could say “altitude sickness,” I was offered the job on the spot.

Less than two months later, I found myself landing back in Ecuador for a six-month stint in Latin America. I’d gone from bubble-wrapped invalid to South American problem-solver faster than you can say “career pivot.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​