Recovery Time

I'm with Alligator.  My two C-sections were a thousand times worse than the surgery.

That said, I was off work for six weeks after my surgery.  I have a very high pain threshold and was off the meds while still in the hospital (I was there about three days, as I recall -- but I had my surgery in 2000, and open versus laproscopic, so that likely had something to do with it), but I was exhausted for ages.

Case in point -- I had my surgery on April 17, and Mother's Day is on what, the second Sunday in May?  So around the end of April I decided to go to my local shopping mall to pick up a gift for my mother.  My sister, who lived in back of beyond in Northern Ontario at the time, asked me if I would pick up a sweater at a store about two down from where I was buying the gift.  I felt great.  Went to the store and got my mother's gift, went to the other store and got my sister's sweater.

And then felt like I was going to a) pass out; b) throw up; c) die; or d) all of the above, probably simultaneously.

Luckily, our local mall has benches about every thirty feet or so, so I worked my way down the mall and out to the door by the parking lot over about the next hour.  I was literally lurching from one bench to the next and what felt like drowning in ice-cold sweat.  Then I had to get out to my car -- which of course wasn't parked particularly close, because when I arrived I was feeling so fabulous I could hardly believe it.  So I crawl out to the car and sit there for about 20 minutes before I dared to try driving home, crawled into the house and spent the next two days in bed.

The moral of this story?  Don't be too anxious to prove how well you've recovered.  You've had a massive insult to your body that will take some time to get over.  And trust me, the work will still be there.  Take the time you need because once you show up at work they're going to figure you're back to 100%.