One other major thing I forgot to mention: lifting is an issue, for quite a while after surgery. I constantly felt embarrassed that I could not help, say, ladies carrying packages, lifting strollers onto buses, etc. In my own case, very very few people know about my surgery, so I did not have a ready "excuse". Two days after I returned from the hospital, we happened to have a houseful of cousins, none of whom knew about my surgery. These included one surgeon and two medical students, and none of them noticed anything much...except they may have thought it weird that my sons kept moving my chair for me!
Even apart from that, try to think through how you will be able to manage, or who will be able to help you with, carrying groceries, the garbage, lifting water pitchers (my kids poured for me), moving chairs around, etc. This could go on for a couple of months, to varying degrees. My normal briefcase load was too heavy for me, so I ditched non-essential material until I felt "back to myself". The more you've thought this through ahead of time, the easier it will be to manage.
Now that I think of it, for some reason, for months leading up to the surgery, I was obsessed with one thing: who would watch my stuff when I went down to surgery? I knew I wouldn't be returning to the same room, and I was afraid that my stuff would kind of fall through the cracks, since I would be in no condition to watch it or move it myself. When I first got to the hospital, the night before the surgery, I put my wallet and ID in the hospital safe. That helped, but still--my clothes, my shoes, my bag, glasses, MP3, watch, etc. worried me. Fortunately, my wife arrived from work about 20 minutes before they took me down, so she was able to take charge of all that stuff. She was also there several hours later to unpack my stuff in my new room, and set it up in a nice, logical manner that made it easier to find and reach it later.
Good luck to you!
Snoopy
Topic: kidney donor surgery coming up in one month! (Read 6844 times)