Recovery from abdominal hysterectomy with bowel resection...how long?

Hey again. Sorry I've posted so many questions lately.

How long did it take for you to be back on your feet for moving about the house, cooking your own meals, light housework, etc.?

How long did it take for full recovery?

If you also had bowel surgery that would be super helpful to know as I will be getting bowel resectioning to remove Endometriosis.

Thanks!

(((K33)))

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I don't know if/how the bowel resection impacts recovery, but I can share my tah/bso experience. Had surgery Thursday morning, woke up feeling alert and pretty good. Rested, drank a lot, watched tv, etc., ate normal dinner although not much as the food was lousy, then got up and walked around a little. Bugged them to get the catheter out and they finally removed it around 10 pm. Then I had to get up and go to the bathroom every 20 min. At 2 am they removed iv, I ended up not needing any meds after that. Went home Friday, exhausted from not sleeping. Relaxed most of the day, ate a little, went to bed early. Saturday I woke up feeling rested and starving. Went to the supermarket with my husband and bought everything in sight, even stuff that I normally don't like. Everything looked do good...... From that point on, I was up and about. I cooked together with my husband over the weekend, he took me on lots of little outings to places where I could walk around. I was restricted from heavy lifting/exertion, swimming/bathing, sex, but I felt good and stayed very active, walking a lot and doing things like cooking, light cleaning, etc. I went back to work at 3 weeks because I was bored and felt great. I was very surprised that I had almost no pain, that I felt so great and felt up to doing so much right away. I did get exhausted by around dinner time for about the first week or so, but that didn't last long. When I went for my 2 week post op, my dr asked if I was sure she actually operated on me, I was moving so well. So I felt hood the whole time, I would say that at about 4 weeks I felt almost completely normal, although I still had some restrictions. At 6 weeks all restrictions were lifted except sex, which was okayed at 9 weeks.

I suspect that your bowel resectioning will significantly affect your recovery time. My mother had bowel resectioning due to an infection and it knocked her off her feet for quite a while. Granted, she was in her early 80s at the time and also has Parkinson's and dementia.

That said, I was mobile pretty quickly after my TAH. The nurses had me out of bed to walk a lap around the ward and sit upright in an armchair for a bit the first morning after surgery. By the second day I was walking multiple laps around the ward on my own and spending the rest of the time sitting upright in the armchair reading.

I did my first walk outdoor on my first full day home, four days after surgery. I walked around the block, went home, rested and felt good. So I went back out and walked around *two* blocks. That felt good too! :-) I stuck to flat ground for the first couple of weeks, which meant I had to stay in my own neighbourhood. My third week I started practicing going up and down steep hills. At four weeks, I was walking 3-6 miles on hilly trails. :-)

What I *couldn't* do for the first four weeks was bend over or twist at the waist and lift, push or pull more than 10 lbs. My lift limit was raised to 30 lbs at four weeks. All restrictions were removed at six weeks, with instructions to start off cautiously and work up gradually. My body felt back to normal at eight weeks except for a bit of abdominal swelling in the evenings, which lingered another month.

I live alone with two cats and had no trouble taking care of myself and them. However, I did pretty minimal housework for the first four weeks, and I'm not much of a cook at the best of times. Before surgery, I scrubbed the apartment, did lots of laundry and stocked up on groceries, toiletries and household items.

After surgery, I prepared simple foods for myself and the cats, washed a few dishes standing at the sink and kept the litter box scooped. I spent the rest of my time walking and sitting outside to read and sew. I plowed through a lot of small mending jobs that could be done sitting down. My motto was, "Those aren't dust bunnies, those are cat toys!"

My sister came to stay my fifth week. By then I was able to give the apartment a good enough cleaning to keep her from freaking out. :-)

I had bowel resection back in June due to diverticulitis that had ruptured. I was down for a while after that but had also developed peritonitis due to the rupture so that infection probably slowed recovery for me. I was very slow moving after spending a couple weeks in the hospital and probably didn't get up moving around at home for a few weeks after that. I was pretty sick though.

This time I am having a couple surgeries at the same time. The TAH with the likely removal of my remaining ovary due to cysts/mass and also a colostomy reversal as I ended up with a colostomy bag due to the infection back in June. I'm also told I have quite a lot of adhesions they will have to work through to take down. I am planning for longer recovery time due to multiple surgeries but have been told it will be nothing like the recovery from what I went through in June. Hopefully, I can be up and moving a short time after surgery.

I've taken suggestions here and have been stocking up on easy to cook food, personal items, toiletries, etc and plan to clean the house up really well this weekend an do laundry so I don't have to worry about any of that for a while when I get back as it is just me, my 12 year old son and my dog.

I had TAH and BS. I also had adhesions along my bladder that had to be worked through before the hysterectomy could take place. The first 2 weeks, I was wondering why I had surgery, I felt totally helpless. Weeks 3 and 4 were up and down, some days great and I could do housework, other days back to weird sharp pains in my groin. Week 5 I was able to run errands every day and make all the meals I needed. Week 6 was fantastic!!!
The only issue I have right now is needing to snack on fruit to keep my blood sugar up to normal. I'm not diabetic so hopefully my body will correct the hypoglycemia on it's own after my hormones are balanced.

I really wish you the best. It's great to ask questions. But please, after your surgery, accept whatever your body does and does not do. It really will make recovery less frustrating.

	Quote:
Originally Posted by K33 Hey again. Sorry I've posted so many questions lately. How long did it take for you to be back on your feet for moving about the house, cooking your own meals, light housework, etc.? How long did it take for full recovery? If you also had bowel surgery that would be super helpful to know as I will be getting bowel resectioning to remove Endometriosis. Thanks!