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After Surgery: When Do You Return To Work?
Question: How long do you take after surgery to get back to life?
I am just a few days out from sinus surgery, and still don’t feel like myself at all (I actually feel worse currently, before hopefully feeling better). Despite feeling terrible, I have to return to work tonight in some capacity. I often return to work or dancing well before the designated time that doctors say so (in this case, two weeks of minimal moving and weekly debrieding, and then a slow return). I just can’t afford to take the full amount of healing time off.
Does anyone else do this or do you have any recovery experiences or advice to share?
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1 Reply
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I’ve had five sinus surgeries in total, so I thought I had the recovery phase down. But a couple years ago, my recovery was far worse than I had anticipated. Three weeks out, my entire face swelled up and I was in such extreme pain. At that point, I regretted getting the surgery because I couldn’t imagine ever feeling better. We determined that I’d developed an infection, which was remedied by a short course of antibiotics. And then FINALLY I started feeling better.
Finally being able to breathe and no longer having debilitating sinus pain/pressure was such a foreign and wonderful feeling! It just took a while to get there. What I learned was that for me, Tylenol was the best pain reliever for that specific type of pain. I was shocked because I generally think Tylenol is pretty worthless (hah!). But I don’t like narcotics, and ibuprofen wasn’t super helpful. Extra strength Tylenol was my unexpected miracle. Also, keeping something cold on my face/forehead really helped. At one point, I’d used my cooling packs and forgotten to put them back in the freezer so I ended up using a frozen burrito on my forehead for relief! 🙂
I hope that your return to work goes well and that you can manage to balance work and recovery. It’s like walking a tightrope, but sometimes it’s just what has to be done. Life doesn’t stop for sickness or recovery. You’ve got this!
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