Poll of the Day > people who had surgery, how long did it take to get your stamina back?

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is my first night at work and the simple act of walking to and from the bathroom(other side of the building) makes me feel like I ran around the block twice. How long should I feel like this?
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It probably depends on the surgery.

When I had laparoscopic gall bladder removal, I was barely able to stand for the first week or so. I had to go to my grandmother's funeral like four days later and literally trying to push my way out of a chair to stand up would cause sweat to bead on my forehead like I was lifting massive weights. And that wasn't even lifting with my legs - the chair had arms and I was straight up pushing myself up like a gymnast on parallel bars because it was the only way I could stand.

About two weeks later I was still pretty tapped out, but I had enough energy to drive through a massive ice storm to a friend's house to GM our RPG campaign. I was still at least somewhat hunched over while I was forced to stop every couple minutes or so to chisel ice off my windshield to see (because the wipers kept freezing up), but I was still able to do it relatively well, and didn't feel completely beat when I got there. It was uncomfortable, yes, but not intolerable.

By about a month I still wasn't supposed to do anything overly strenuous or taxing but I was generally able to walk around normally and didn't get too tired doing normal things.

Pretty much by the end of 8 weeks to the day I was playing street hockey (which was the bare minimum amount of time I'd been told to wait, but I was 22 and thus obviously immortal and indestructible and doctor's advice clearly didn't apply to me). Doing that I definitely felt like I had less stamina than normal, but by that point I think it was less the surgery itself and more just the fact that I hadn't really exercised for two straight months.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

It probably depends on the surgery.

This...
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I had a cyst removed a year or so ago and was good to go as soon as the procedure was finished.
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depending on what it's for, usually a few hours

my last one took me about a week though
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I had a stomach ulcer removed. I couldn't get out of bed for about a week and got a bug so was in hospital for 3. Still I believe it's normally a week after surgery before you start getting you're strength back.
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I also had gall bladder removal and I was like... 5 days without doing hard things...
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My vasectomy didn't bother my stamina at all. Neither did the surgery to fix my deviated septum. When I got my tonsils out as a kid (way back in '88 and I was 7/almost 8), I remember not wanting to do anything for a few days

Depends on the surgery and your physical condition before hand.

A few years ago I had a massive infection in my lung that required surgery. I was stuck in the hospital for a week and couldn't even wipe my own butt after using the bathroom (which I only did twice in a week, that's how bad off I was). They tried to get me to walk around, trailing all kinds of tubes and wires, but couldn't make it more than a few feet outside my room. I think it was the chest tubes that were causing most of my problems.

But once they took the chest tubes out, I was up and about almost back to normal within minutes. I walked completely around the hospital ward, took a shower, and dressed myself.

They sent me home with instructions to rest and not to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk for a month. That evening I was outside picking up a full-grown pygmy goat (about 40-50 pounds) and carrying her about 40 or 50 yards.
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my legs were surgically removed 12 years ago and I still havent been able to walk since then

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I'm a physical therapist. If you tell me what surgery, I can probably give you a ballpark estimate but really depends on your age, co-morbidities, prior level of function, etc.

The anesthesia matters a lot, and the personal tolerances vary

It fucks me up really bad and it took me weeks to get back to things mentally. The same day hours after coming to from anesthesia I couldn't form a coherent spoken sentence

You should have someone to check on or watch you for a day if you're getting general anesthesia

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If I recall, it was something like a few days to be able to slowly limp around painfully, a week and a half to limp around with only some pain, and at least a few weeks before it didn't feel like there was a hole cut in me anymore. (and then months maybe even a year before the incision site felt relatively normal again).

(actually, one thing I discovered that I definitely don't really like now are "dissolvable stitches"; maybe if I had picked at it more it wouldn't have been a problem but it actually took 10-15 years for the last of the dissolvable stitches to come out. I think it would have healed a lot faster without that stupid gunk embedded in my skin.)
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I had a hernia a couple of years ago. I went in for outpatient surgery on a Monday, and really started feeling better on Wednesday after two good days of rest. But I'd taken the whole week off from work, and I definitely enjoyed the extra few days of rest after that.

I returned to work the next Monday on "light duty". I was feeling really good by then, but I also didn't have to do any heavy lifting for a couple of weeks.

It's also worth noting that that's a pretty minor procedure that I had. I don't know what kind of surgery you had, or how much time you were able to take off work, or what you do for a living, but those are three things that can have a huge effect on recovery time.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

laparoscopic gall bladder removal

I'm having a similar surgery in about 2 months.

If you don't mind, what physical condition were you in before the surgery? I'm a healthy weight and I'm fairly active, and not much older than you were with that surgery (I'm 27). I've booked a week off of teaching and I'm hoping that's enough time to recover (surgery on a Friday, back on the next Monday after that next week).

I don't teach anything physically strenuous and I probably could be allowed to spend a bit of class time sitting if need be, so I'm sure I'll be fine.
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faramir77 posted...

If you don't mind, what physical condition were you in before the surgery? I'm a healthy weight and I'm fairly active, and not much older than you were with that surgery (I'm 27). I've booked a week off of teaching and I'm hoping that's enough time to recover (surgery on a Friday, back on the next Monday after that next week).

I don't teach anything physically strenuous and I probably could be allowed to spend a bit of class time sitting if need be, so I'm sure I'll be fine.

I was actually in pretty good shape (possibly the best shape of my life). I was 21 (about a month before turning 22), a relatively ideal weight for my body type, I basically had to walk about a mile or so to get from my apartment to class (and on some days did it multiple times a day, both ways), and I was playing street hockey on-and-off so I was used to running around a fair amount.

One week off seems like it might not be enough - I had my surgery on Thursday, and was kicked out of the hospital on Saturday (and had a lot of trouble getting into the car I rode home in). I spent most of that week just trying to sleep and heal as quickly as possible, and I'm not sure I would have been able to fully resume normal activity by that point. Like I said, I was still a fair bit fatigued and bent over even two weeks later.

A lot of it depends on how you get to/from work, whether or not you stay in one classroom all day or will be moving from room-to-room, whether it's going to be a problem if you're moving much slower than usual, etc. Also keep in mind you're not supposed to be carrying anything heavy or otherwise exerting yourself too much, so carrying a lot of books might be a problem, depending.

It's hard to generalize one person's experience to everyone else, though - you might take 2-3 times as long to recover as I did, or you might be healing in half the time and feel completely fine in just a couple weeks. You'll never really know until after you've had the surgery and see how you're progressing.

It may also help that you're not an emergency case, if you're scheduling your surgery 2 months ahead of time. For me, I basically woke up in the middle of the night on Monday in agonizing pain, went to the doctor on Tuesday and he sent me to the hospital immediately, they did the surgery on Thursday, and when I went to the doctor for a follow-up check-up afterwards he told me my gall bladder had actually gone necrotic and if I'd waited another week or so to have surgery I'd likely be dead. So it's possible my body had way more stress on it, which in turn made the impact of the surgery worse, so my recovery took longer. But that's just speculation, and could be entirely wrong.
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It really does depend on your previous level of health. I have never truly regained all the ground I lost during and after my 3 weeks in hospital for emergency gall bladder surgery in 2012; I had to start using my powered wheelchair full-time outside my home after that, because 3 weeks with so much less than even my usual impaired mobility had such a weakening effect on my body and my underlying dysautonomia. But I was chronically ill even before I got the gall bladder infection & gallstones. So it'll be very different, most likely.
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Sahuagin posted...

(actually, one thing I discovered that I definitely don't really like now are "dissolvable stitches"; maybe if I had picked at it more it wouldn't have been a problem but it actually took 10-15 years for the last of the dissolvable stitches to come out. I think it would have healed a lot faster without that stupid gunk embedded in my skin.)

You really should've picked at them more. Mine didn't all dissolve on their own, but after a few weeks I wound up spraying the shower head against the healed incision area while gently tugging at the bits of stitches that were left sticking out, & I managed to pull the remainder pretty well all out without any additional damage.
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Again, depends on the surgery and maybe your age and physical strength before the surgery. I had my appendix out years ago and it took maybe a week. My husband had opened 2 heart surgeries a week apart over 5 years and his strength, when it returned, was better than before due to his heart's weakened condition. I would say at least 3 weeks for him. He was also afraid something would go wrong after we got home so it took him awhile to realize he was OK. The sad thing is, he will probably have to have at least 2 more open heart surgeries in his lifetime so I am sure his age will make a difference.

My daughter had brain surgery 3 years ago. She was born with an AVM in her brain and we didn't know until it ruptured. It took months after returning home from 2 months in the hospital before she didn't sleep almost all the time. Then she had physical therapy she had to do to for strength but again, age has a lot to do with it.

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Trialia posted...

Sahuagin posted...

(actually, one thing I discovered that I definitely don't really like now are "dissolvable stitches"; maybe if I had picked at it more it wouldn't have been a problem but it actually took 10-15 years for the last of the dissolvable stitches to come out. I think it would have healed a lot faster without that stupid gunk embedded in my skin.)

You really should've picked at them more. Mine didn't all dissolve on their own, but after a few weeks I wound up spraying the shower head against the healed incision area while gently tugging at the bits of stitches that were left sticking out, & I managed to pull the remainder pretty well all out without any additional damage.

Last surgery I had they didn't even use stitches, they literally just glued me back together. (It was microsurgery on my spine, the incision was about 1 inch)
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Trialia posted...

Sahuagin posted...

(actually, one thing I discovered that I definitely don't really like now are "dissolvable stitches"; maybe if I had picked at it more it wouldn't have been a problem but it actually took 10-15 years for the last of the dissolvable stitches to come out. I think it would have healed a lot faster without that stupid gunk embedded in my skin.)

You really should've picked at them more. Mine didn't all dissolve on their own, but after a few weeks I wound up spraying the shower head against the healed incision area while gently tugging at the bits of stitches that were left sticking out, & I managed to pull the remainder pretty well all out without any additional damage.

well I don't know if it would have helped or not. it was swollen abnormally for a long time, and every now and then (like every year or so) a small piece of gunk would ooze out of it. I had thought that it was just some kind of bodily thing, but I eventually realized, like 15 years later, that after all that time that was the dang stitches.
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For the moment skipping the original injury in 1972 (17 years old) that took 2 years and 32 major surgeries to fix, I had an outpatient mesh hernia repair in 2003. When I got home (drove myself) the 300yd driveway to my home was plowed in so I had to go get my snowblower and do the driveway before I could even get into my house. I had taken a week off from work but still had a business to run, but I had no signs of fatigue and was pretty much back to normal that same evening (49 years old). At age 63 (2017) the leg that had been repaired in 1972, but had been pretty much useless since, had a dormant infection reappear and caused me to have to have it amputated. I was in hospital about a month and a rehab unit about another 3 weeks learning to walk with a walker, balance and all the safety shit while waiting to heal enough to get a mech leg. I had plenty of energy at all times and spent most of my time trying to tell the doctor I was ready to go home but they wouldn't have any part of it. They finally got the message when I hopped on one leg around the physical therapy room for about 40 yards with no support.

Back to the original injury. I still remember the day they said I could go home, I literally walked from the hospital to my friends house on crutches (about 2 miles) and then about a mile from his house to the bowling alley to wait for my parents to get off work to drive me the 10 miles to our home. I was sore as hell the next couple of days, but no fatigue or stamina issues.

Not sure what that all means to you in your case but I was never particularly physically fit or athletic in any way, but none of my surgeries ever caused any stamina issues. The only thing that ever hit me hard that way was a severe case of food poisoning I had when I was about 36yo that left me weak as a kitten for about a week. Go figure?
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peanutt121 posted...

For the moment skipping the original injury in 1972 (17 years old) that took 2 years and 32 major surgeries to fix, I had an outpatient mesh hernia repair in 2003. When I got home (drove myself) the 300yd driveway to my home was plowed in so I had to go get my snowblower and do the driveway before I could even get into my house. I had taken a week off from work but still had a business to run, but I had no signs of fatigue and was pretty much back to normal that same evening (49 years old). At age 63 (2017) the leg that had been repaired in 1972, but had been pretty much useless since, had a dormant infection reappear and caused me to have to have it amputated. I was in hospital about a month and a rehab unit about another 3 weeks learning to walk with a walker, balance and all the safety shit while waiting to heal enough to get a mech leg. I had plenty of energy at all times and spent most of my time trying to tell the doctor I was ready to go home but they wouldn't have any part of it. They finally got the message when I hopped on one leg around the physical therapy room for about 40 yards with no support.

Back to the original injury. I still remember the day they said I could go home, I literally walked from the hospital to my friends house on crutches (about 2 miles) and then about a mile from his house to the bowling alley to wait for my parents to get off work to drive me the 10 miles to our home. I was sore as hell the next couple of days, but no fatigue or stamina issues.

Not sure what that all means to you in your case but I was never particularly physically fit or athletic in any way, but none of my surgeries ever caused any stamina issues. The only thing that ever hit me hard that way was a severe case of food poisoning I had when I was about 36yo that left me weak as a kitten for about a week. Go figure?

As I was saying before, underlying health issues probably have a big effect with all this. I had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, dysautonomia, fibromyalgia, PCOS & asthma before gallstones hit me.

It's like with my latest hospital stay - I had the flu after a week in Dublin for Worldcon. The hospital doctor outright stated that if I hadn't already had so much to deal with, the flu "would have bounced off" me.

Unfortunately, the dehydration caused by vomiting & the runs combined with my autonomic nervous system impairment(s), and that left me in & out of consciousness for at least 24 hours. Because I live alone & my care hadn't settled back into place yet after my convention trip, I had to wait til I was coherent enough to ring an ambulance. I wound up spending 36 hours in-patient on a saline & anti-emetic drip to rehydrate me & rebalance my potassium levels before I could go home.

But, and this is the real point, I would never have wound up there in the first place if I weren't already chronically ill.
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I broke my left elbow in high school. Took a bad fall off the gymnastics rings in gym class. They had to open my arm up and put a plate in there so the joint would heal up properly.

The recovery sucked. While I didnt necessarily love gym class it was certainly better than the bullshit papers they had me write for participation.

Oh and it was painful as hell. As a gamer I couldnt really play for a few weeks because my left arm was all casted up. So when I could start moving my fingers again... man that was painful (since I hadnt really been using them).

I wasnt allowed to move my arm laterally until the healing was done. So, showers when I took off the brace I was eventually given were scary for me.

My left arm is weaker than my right arm, it hurts like hell if something hits it and I had a scare last year where my wrist was swelling and in constant pain for like 3 months I may have thought was related... thankfully that went away, but I made sure to get one of those wrist rests for my computer anyways.

I still have the scar where they cut into me too.

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After a broken blood vessel was removed from my brain I made a pretty quick recovery. I was allowed to leave the hospital after 2 days, instead of their week-long projection. Then I spent a few weeks resting in bed.
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Trialia posted...

But, and this is the real point, I would never have wound up there in the first place if I weren't already chronically ill.

I guess I wasn't very clear and sounded like I was belittling those who had problems after whatever. My real point was everyone has a different response to surgical procedures. While I had virtually no problems, other people I knew were affected very harshly and spent weeks or months recovering. The injury I sustained in 1972 caused me to be bedridden for slightly over 2 years healing, yet the day I was first allowed to leave the hospital I walked nearly 3 miles on crutches without feeling any different than before my injury. Well until the next day and was sore as hell for a couple of days. Even that still didn't slow me down much. I consider myself very lucky in that respect.
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peanutt121 posted...

Trialia posted...

But, and this is the real point, I would never have wound up there in the first place if I weren't already chronically ill.

I guess I wasn't very clear and sounded like I was belittling those who had problems after whatever. My real point was everyone has a different response to surgical procedures. While I had virtually no problems, other people I knew were affected very harshly and spent weeks or months recovering. The injury I sustained in 1972 caused me to be bedridden for slightly over 2 years healing, yet the day I was first allowed to leave the hospital I walked nearly 3 miles on crutches without feeling any different than before my injury. Well until the next day and was sore as hell for a couple of days. Even that still didn't slow me down much. I consider myself very lucky in that respect.

Oh, no, I didn't think that.

Tbh, I was more elaborating on how the main two kinds of disability - in that particular sense anyway - have such different effects on potential recovery etc. By kinds I mean chronic illness is one thing, but stuff like amputated or missing limbs or similar injuries that don't really change over time are another... if that makes sense?

Of course they're not the only two sorts of situation that can fall under the umbrella of disability, but they do tend to rather contrast where the impact on general health is concerned.
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