Major surgery? Laparoscopy - Newbie

[Tulip87]

Hi all.

I'm new here 🖐

I had laparoscopy excision last Wednesday 1st May where my consultant found my endometriosis was worse than he expected.

Stage 4 endo. POD, bowel, ovaries, uterus, kidneys, ureter etc.

Despite me wanting to come home, they kept me in hospital for 4 days.

I've been at home 3 days now and I'm feeling a lot better than I was.

My consultant has advised I take 6 weeks off work (yeah right!) and no driving, telling me it was major surgery?! I'm planning on going back to work on Monday as I don't feel terrible and I do really need to go back asap. I'm wondering if they say 6 weeks just to cover themselves?

Has anyone else gone back to work after a week and half or so?? And when did you resume normal activity at home - housework, cooking, picking up children etc?

Also - following surgery my consultant has referred me for a kidney & ureter scan. Has anybody else had this and why?

Sorry for the long post.

Thank you so much in advance for any replies xx

[Harley35]

Hi you should take at least a couple of weeks I only got 11 days off to recover from my Op my work wasn’t very supportive so I couldn’t take weeks off as the doctors has told me to but you should definitely take time to recover I know what it’s like to go back to work too soon xx hope this helps 😊

[IndigoMoon1234]

Hi there

You really should follow their advice.

I just had a diagnostic lap (nothing excised). I didn't rest properly and now two and a half years later I am still in constant pain. The lap resulted in a hernia and possible bladder damage plus the endo is back.

You have just had major surgery. Your body needs time to heal.

Best of luck to you. Hope you make a full recovery

xx

[CatsPajamas]

Dear tulip87,

If I’m reading this right, you had the same surgery as me but by laparoscopy rather than laparotomy? The work the surgeon has done internally is not small - and healing does take the 6 weeks he says - so please do take care as adhesions can build around the previous surgery making your problems return. I wouldn’t rush back now that I understand better what my body has been through even if I felt good. We are too precious. I thought I’d be back in 2 weeks but it took 8 and more although as I say the surgical approach to our cases were different. Also I got an infection at day 10.

Best of luck and please do take care.

[Chrysta123]

Hey,

The others are right really do not rush back into anything, you need time to heal! I assume they said 6 weeks as it can take around 6 weeks for the stitches to fully heal/dissolve (if you got dissolvable ones) and even longer for your insides to heal. I thought I would be back to normal after 2 weeks I was seriously wrong, had 2 weeks off work and third week was part time working from home as I really underestimated how tired it would make me! Even then I think I went back too soon but just got on with it. I couldn’t drive until 4 weeks as the clutch in my car hurt my stomach before that point, I think the general rule is as long as you can drive and perform an emergancy stop without being in pain then you are ok to drive, but it is not adviced until 3 weeks after the op.

In terms of going back to normal activites you need to just listen to what your body is telling you that you can/can’t do. I was ok to lift light things such as light shopping or small washing loads after about 4 weeks but anything heavy would hurt, I also tried to walk my dog too soon and that set me back so if you need to recover quickly I would say take it easy as log as you can as the more you rest the better your body will heal up!

Good luck with the rest of your recovery x

[hm89]

Did you have open surgery or keyhole? Open surgery has a much longer recovery time. I took 10 days rest with just short walks and then back in work after that but I did struggle physically as I found sitting at a desk uncomfortable. I only had keyhole.

[Peebles2sarah]

Why did they keep you in the hospital that long?? Did you have complications? I had a similar surgery (stage 4) and tube/ovary removed and they let me go that day :/ last surgery I was able to go back to school after 2 weeks and to work after 3. At about 6 weeks I felt fully back to normal. I’m not sure if maybe there was some complications or something that are worrying your doctor but it’s definitely not standard to stay in hospital that long or to need to take 6 weeks off.

[Tulip87]

Thank you very much for all of your replies. I have decided to take a couple more days and go back to work on Wednesday - two weeks after op. I've not been told of any complications, just told that it was a lot of surgery. However, my consultant was sending docs to check on me at 11pm at night as well as the normal checks and doctors rounds. And he was checking on me daily himself even when he was based at a different hospital that day. I don't know whether this is standard procedure but I felt I was well looked after.

Any way, thank you all so much xxx