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