Guest Post: Recovering from Surgery

Good morning all! This morning I am off to have surgery, and in the meantime, one of our fabulous sponsors, Dara is here to share some tips for recovering after surgery. What's fantastic is that I work in a surgery center and I LOVE these tips. Everyone needs to read these and take each item into consideration, whether it be a big or small procedure. Dara has some great tips below, and a wonderful blog you need to check out! I'll be back as soon as I can!

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Hello fellow This Workman Life readers! My name is Dara and I’m a blogger over at Not In Jersey, a place where I write about all the exciting (and maybe not so exciting) adventures my family and I enjoy. To introduce myself briefly, I’m a 30-something mom to 3 kids, ages 3, 6, and 8, and I love reading, traveling, Disney, crafts, and of course blogging!

Because Dani asked me to guest post for her while she is recovering from surgery, I thought I’d share a bit of advice for surgery recovery. Earlier this year, I too went through a surgery. From my experience, here is some of my surgery recovery advice.

1. Take whatever help you can get. I was very lucky that a friend of mine offered to call friends on my behalf and ask them to make meals for my family. I had all my dinners taken care of for two weeks after the surgery! Even if you think you can take care of yourself, be sure to say yes if people offer any type of help.

2. Prepare ahead. I thought about what I might want to eat the day I had my surgery and I asked my mom, who came to stay with us, to make soup, which I thought would be something easy to eat. I ended up having no appetite at all, and barely ate anything that day or the next. I don’t recommend this!

3. Keep hydrated as best as you can. About two days after my surgery, I woke up with the worst headache. I am pretty sure it was because I hadn’t been eating or drinking regularly. I also hadn’t had my caffeine fix for three days – coffee withdrawal! Since protein helps with healing, I’d suggest trying to drink muscle recovery drinks to keep your strength up. (I recently reviewed Rockin’ Refuel on my blog, as a suggestion!)

4. Follow your doctor’s advice. If they tell you not to shower, don’t try to bend the rules like I did. I was sick of being smelly so I showered before it was recommended. I don’t know for sure, but this may have caused some of the complications I experienced in my healing.

5. On the other hand, be your own advocate. After my surgery, my doctor prescribed me a cream to use on the part of my incision that wasn’t healing correctly. Unfortunately, no one realized the possibility that I was allergic to this cream – I am allergic to sulfa drugs when taken orally, but no one considered I might be allergic to the topical form as well. I had a lot of unneeded suffering due to an allergic reaction to this cream.
I wish I would have realized to question the prescription before it was too late!

Hopefully Dani will be back soon to tell everyone how great her surgery and recovery was and I hope that anyone else preparing for an upcoming surgery will benefit from my advice!