return to work

Status
Not open for further replies.

rileysmom

new member
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
1
Location
United States
I'm 48, no previous surgery, treatment. Suddenly, I need at least a partial, if not complete KR. I work at home, can have work delivered to me and picked up. After rehabbing a few weeks in bed, shouldn't I be able to "return" to work within weeks?
 
You won't be rehabbing in bed. In fact, I spent very little time in bed... Patti's right, she went back to work way, way to early but if you are working from home and allow time for PT and extra rest, you should be able to work at this point.
 
I've had two shoulders fixed, 3 knee, and coronary bypass by far the total knee was
the hardest to deal with. The rest you "got fixed" and slowly got better. You started
tired and got more energy. The total knee you are doing a bunch of daily exercise which
will make you nod off after lunch. Some time the exercises or the weather will make
you want to lay in the one position which won't hurt. You'll be taking narcotics for probably more than a month. You won't sleep well at night so you'll be tired during
the day.

So getting the work delivered to your home and working for an hour or two a day is probably possible. But if you are thinking about putting in 8 hours at home I think its a bit optimistic.

Now I have to say that there are probably people on this list who have done it. The
post op is pretty individual.
a month.
 
be careful with any serious work after a few weeks post surgery. you will still be on substantial pain meds which will dull you a bit and may make your work
"difficult".
 
Between healing and the pain meds, it was doze city for me in the beginning. Work from home? Maybe after a couple /3 weeks in small amounts like already mentioned.
 
Dear Rileysmom,
I have a travel agency out of my home and I can tell you I didn't feel like working for probably 5 or 6 weeks. It was so hard to concentrate and between visits to the physical therapist and at home exercises I was and still am a bit exhausted. I had my surgery Jan 9 and boy is this recovery slow so give yourself plenty of time to heal.
Cathy
 
Hi Rileysmom and welcome.

I work from home, but couldn't even bear to sit at my computer for at least 3 weeks. I started working at my desk again about 5-6 weeks, no longer than an hour at a time, hurt to sit under my thigh too, 7-8 weeks it was 2-3 hours at a time. I also had my surgery on Jan 9th. I still get stiff sitting, and get tired easily still. Exercise and general housework, groceries etc. exhaust me still at 16 weeks.

You must keep moving when you are in rehab, you will be up and walking with a walker on the 2nd day. You need to move to avoid getting blood clots and you have to do physio on your leg the first day. You will also need lots of rest.

Good luck with your surgery.
 
I work in an office, mostly on a computer. I had my surgery on 12-17 and went back to work part time (4 hours a day from home) the last week of February. I went back full time on March 3. I was totally exhausted at the end of each day and I am just now getting my stamina back. I iced my knee constantly at work, but worked mostly from home. If I had to go into the office for those full time days at the beginning, I think I would have died... or felt like it. I am an active 55 year old woman and was in great shape before the surgery. I am still taking pain meds at almost 20 weeks; only maybe 3 a week, but still taking them.

Good luck. Take your time and be patient. Don't rush back to work. Once you are back, there is no turning around and taking more time off...
 
I'm 48, no previous surgery, treatment. Suddenly, I need at least a partial, if not complete KR. I work at home, can have work delivered to me and picked up. After rehabbing a few weeks in bed, shouldn't I be able to "return" to work within weeks?

Hi Rileysmom,

I guess how much you'll be able to work from home and how soon depends on the specifics of what you do.

I also work at home. I work part-time for a university law library, editing a weekly bibliography of the latest law review articles, which we publish and sell to law libraries all over the country. I don't have to do the computer input. I just browse the law journals, decide what information needs to get put into the bibliography, and then the real work of putting the information onto the computer gets done by someone who is willing to work a real job. I have worked at home for years, only going into the library to drop off and pick up work.

Anyhow, I was able to return to work within a week after my right TKR, because I could do my work sitting up in bed. My husband took over the drop offs and pick ups of work.

I was also able to start using my computer pretty extensively within about a week, but that's because I used a laptop, again in bed, and perched it on a pillow so it didn't hurt my leg.

It was quite a while--about a month, I think--before I felt comfortable sitting at a desk with a desktop computer for even a half hour.

Since my editing job is only part-time, I also sell on eBay on the side. I couldn't get back to my eBay selling until I was about six weeks post-surgery because of the amount of time required at the computer and also the demands of packing up the stuff that sold and getting it to the post office. Initially I had to get a lot of help from my family to get back into the eBay selling.

I'd say I was about 2 months post-surgery when I was really back up to speed with work. Longer than that before I could haul a bunch of law journals around again. I'm six months post-surgery and I still use disabled parking and a luggage cart when I need to haul my work in to the library from the parking lot.

I hope this helps you figure out what you can realistically do.

Sue
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom