Welcome new member djplay2: recent RP and an on-his-feet job. How soon?

Found a first post from a new member in an oldish thread. Make him welcome.

Djplay2 said...
Had surgery on January 16th dr said he had to reconstruct my bladder more than normal therefor I was in the hospital for a week.
I have 2questions
1- I work at a job where I'm on my feet for ten hours a day fifty hours a week. Most people return to work in two to three weeks however most of them had office type jobs, I'm not sure if I'm up to that. What are some of your thoughts...
2- testicles are sore is this normal and for how long
Thanks

I think part of the answer might be related to your overall fitness level before the surgery. I have a desk job during the week but I teach skiing on the weekends. I returned to teaching skiing four weeks are my surgery, which had zero complications at all. And, I was exhausted after those two days on snow, to be honest. I don't think I could have done a third straight day.

Going into my surgery, I have a nearly 30 year history of being an "athlete" - years spent competing as a runner, triathlete, ultra-marathon runner, and in recent years, lots of lifting, CrossFit, cycling, hiking, etc. So, I went in to my surgery very fit, and I'm nowhere close to 100% after almost 5 weeks. I think this will be the first week since my surgery that I've put 40 hours in at my desk job.

Is there a way you can ease back into the job? Maybe work some half days to start to see how it goes? I'm kind of lucky because I run a software department at a software company and I've had some good people able to cover for me while I've been gone. So, partial days or missed days haven't been an issue, and I had enough accrued time off to make this work.

To be honest, I would have preferred an entire month off of work after the surgery, but that would have been too much impact to my company.

Best of luck. I've had many people remind me through this that taking care of myself needs to be my first priority. I've tried to find a balance between that and work, but there's a lot of truth in there. Be kind to yourself. It's a major ordeal and your mind and body both need time to heal.

My doc originally suggested planning 5-7 weeks before returning to my office / desk job environment.

Multiple reasons beyond the obvious physical recovery that is only beginning at 4-5 weeks. 1) I was on heavy pain killers, and that distorts judgement and reactions. 2) I had no return of any sort of continence, and had the issue of needing a nearby toilet always available, not the case in my office (people line up to crowd the holes reading the paper). 3) fatigue that led me to pretty much drop with no real warning.

And others - such as being at the top of a +10 story building where the fire alarm goes off a lot (there is another company's call center on a low floor where people don't understand the difference between 45 seconds and 45 minutes on the microwave when putting in popcorn, so frequent evacuations). Do that a couple of times (down and back up by stairs) and you'll see what blood in urine really looks like.

In the end I was back via remote access for carefully managed time windows (x hours after the last pain meds, end before the afternoon pain started) and used an intermediary for everything that had to be seen by folks outside my group. Not just spell checking


Because of the eventual continuing incontinence, urinary from surgery, bowel from RT, and the limited facilities issues, I've never returned full time to the office, and had to stop my almost daily air travel.

I have a desk job when I am not traveling which is about every other week and I had six weeks off wish it had been more when I travel on my feet for 10-12 hours a day it's tough very tired by the end of the dat, recommend taking as much time as you can get

Thanks for all the replies, they are so helpful.
Most that I had read have been from older post.
Nice to see up to dat post