Singing at Christmas time?

Okay, another odd question... I enjoy singing, I mean really singing, with my diaphragm and full-bodied voice singing. I cantor at my church a couple times a month, so I am wondering when I can get back into singing without splitting my gut after my LH. I go to the castle 2 weeks before Christmas, so will that be enough time to heal so I can sing again for the holiday?

That's actually a very good question. I don't sing, but I noticed a couple of things after my TAH. One was that my normally low voice sounded thready. When I tried humming a backwards scale, I discovered that I'd lost my lower register. The other thing was that as I healed and started to pick up speed when walking over the course of the first two weeks, I also started getting stitches in my side every time I went for a walk.

I took flute lessons when I was a kid and we were always told to breathe from the diaphragm, so I suspected that my diaphragm wasn't getting its usual level of support from my abdominal muscles. A friend who sings agreed that this sounded likely.

What I did was to start doing breathing exercises in which I inhaled and then focussed on using my abdominal muscles to push the air back. This seemed to help get rid of the stitches after they'd already shown up, but it was almost four weeks before they stopped showing up in the first place. My voice was back to normal sooner than that, maybe three weeks.

So I have to say, you may or may not be able to sing with your full voice two weeks after surgery. It just might not be happening for you this particular year - but it will in years to come.

By the way, I found that doing the breathing exercises while I was sitting on the throne waiting to pass a BM seemed to help that process as well.

Thanks for the advice. I figured that I won't be in perfect singing form by Christmas this year, so it is good to know I should take it easy until I feel ready to support my voice again.

I am professional woodwind player (flute/clarinet/sax). It was 8 weeks before I could use full diaphragm breath and even now (11 weeks) my breath control is not back to where it was before. I can feel long breaths putting pressure on my stitches and so have taken it easy with the blowing. I would imagine singing to be similar,

I agree with the other sisters...

I would be very cautious on full singing that close to your surgery.... two weeks is not much time. Everything gets moved around a bit in there, and no matter how they enter your tummy you have much healing to do. Maybe give it a break this Christmas, and let those insides heal.

I am a singer and sax player.... No way could I have sung with any power at less than a month post-op! I just didn't feel at all "well" enough to do it.

May be too soon. Would have been for me.