pelvic prolapse surgery

[alterbetternow]

I’m going to have to have this in May. I need some really honest answers from folks who may have had this. I work in a technical field that requires me to lift pretty heavy objects. I weigh about 130. I have to pull, push and lift for about 4 hours a day when I work.

My doctors have suggested that I just need to retire. I have no other pressing health problems but I know I’ll be really fuzzy from the anesthesia for a couple of months after as that has always happened to me in the past with surgeries.

If I can’t come back to my job I need to tell my employer now so they can find a replacement. If I hire an assistant to help me in the first couple of months will I be able to resume my normal work load or is this just too much? I’m really suffering from this right now but it just kills me to have to give up my career, but I’ll be 65 this spring anyway.

I have had 3 consults. One tells me that he does this laparoscopic procedure and uses no mesh. I’ll be under for 5-7 hours and I will never be able to work again.

The second one tells me that he also uses the laparoscopic procedure but he uses the mesh and that I’ll be able to hire an assistant for the heavy lifting but I an resume my normal schedule after 5-6 months if I am patient.

The third tells me that there is no way to repair this so that I can work again except to do an open procedure. She says she can fix it but I will need a year off to let it really heal well before I can do the lifting.

Does anyone have a clue about this? I’m so confused and I really need to have this done. I have been putting it off for a couple of years and I’m so miserable with this I could scream, but it will be very sad for me to have to stop working.

[Bluey]

Don’t know if you have the same, but I had total pelvic floor reconstruction and have a lifetime restriction now on lifting, pulling or pushing, for months it was only 10#, then 20#, now not over 50# at most, if I have to.
No straining at all, I tested that I can lift more than men twice my size, so he insisted I had to be very aware just not to try.

The surgeon made me promise I would obey that restriction, or he would not operate, said I would be back in surgery.
He also said absolutely no to the mesh, there have been recalls and much misery from it, for this kind of reconstruction, but yours may be different.

The surgery was because of a large mass also, that turned to be intestines that had snuck into the wrong place, not a tumor.
I was warned they may have to be very aggressive if it was cancer and no telling what all they may have to take out, but he could sort it all out and I was like new, other than the restriction on straining.

It was supposed to be 45 minutes, but it took him over 2 hours, so the anesthesia did knock me for a loop.
I was supposed to stay five days in the hospital, but they let me go home after three, the main nurse was mad about it, but the doctor said I was ready, so I left.

They can do wonders today, get the best surgeon you can find and trust they will do what needs to be done.

I move 75 bales of hay around by sliding them into a dolly and wheeling them around, use the tractor, even if it takes longer, to lift heavy stuff before I would just pick up and walk off with it, push 80# concrete mix sacks into the bucket without lifting them, etc.

Can you find another job, where you don’t have to do anything physically stressful?
I have been very careful, but at times forget, oops!

I would say, you probably should quit a job where you have to do any lifting, sorry.