Bedside nurses or anyone who lifts at work...

How long before you returned to work?  I will be going back next week at a month post-op.  I am concerned this may be too soon; I don't want to disrupt any stitches inside even though I am mostly healed outside.  We cannot return to work with any restricted/light duties.

If anyone went back at this time, how did you feel?  Any pain at work?  Should I wait til 6 wks to return?  I feel fine at home; of course, that is definitely nothing like work.

Just wanted other opinions.  Thanks. 

Khem

You should be fine. If your outrsides are healed your insides are healed too. It's pretty difficult to harm inside stitches. I went back at 5 weeks.
-Wanda

I am a nurse in the OR and I went back 3 weeks post op with no restrictions.  I move patients all the time, and other than maybe not lifting the really big ones, I didn't have any issues.  My only issue was fatigue, but then again I had a post op bleed 5 days after surgery and lost half my blood volume, so if that hadn't happened I probably would have felt alot better.

Amy

I had a very different experience when returning to work at the Hospital after almost 7 weeks.  I felt awesome the day I went back, full of energy..I was trying to take it easy..not lifting too much other than a small amount of laundry after helping bath a patient...but I too was fatiqued after 4 hours LOL.  But 5 hours into a 12 hour shift I was wiped out.  Then an hour later I bent over to pick something up for a patient and felt a sharp burning pain in my abdominal area.  When I went to my surgeon he scolded me..lol. He said that i need to take it easy for up to 6 months even! Not to over do it.  As if you can take it easy for 6 months in this field. lol Man it was painful.  It was a pulled muscle.  Even though it may be lap. surgery this is a Major surgery - they are cutting through tissue, muscle, nerves, ect.  This pain put me on light duty at work...and as you know there is very little you can do at a hospital that is 'light duty'. I as surprised cause I had felt so good.  The pain was so bad that I would roll over at night in my sleep and it would wake me up...laughing, coughing, getting up from a chair would hurt it.  It was only last week that it finally started getting better (almost 3 months post op).  As my surgeon said, just because your outside wounds look healed - that does not mean your insides are fully healed.  Take it easy if you go back.

Those are my concerns.  My dr. told me today that I can go back w/o restrictions but to be careful and rest if I need to.  He is clueless to getting "rest" at work.  My supervisor reminded me of the no-restriction/light duty clause.  So, I will just have to use my own discretion when i go back.

Hi,

I haven't had surgery, but my surgeon has said he has patients off work 2 to 3 weeks without any restrictions.  I am hoping to take whole 3 weeks off.  The unit I work on is pretty good if someone is having problems lifting and tries to avoid giving heavy patients to nurses that need to watch lifting.  Of course, that is not always possible.

I have to lift some. And I don't know when it happend but I ended up with a big old incisional hernia...looks like i'm pregnant on one side on my upper right abdomen.

Worst of all, now I have ANOTHER surgery to look forward to.

Bleh.