Hysterectomy and going to parks?

[returnplanning]

Hi all

one of our party has just been listed for a hysterectomy - she was told the wait list is about 9 months, which brings us very close to the holiday dates which are October 2020. Obviously it would be daft to have the op less than 1 month before going to the parks (the person would not be doing major coasters but would like to do Big Thunder Mountain, Space mountain, Splash Mountain level of rides), and the suggested recovery time is 6-8 weeks.

I'm looking for people who would be willing to share experiences of going to the park after similar operations - if it was 2 months before, were you ok, did you(or the person you know who had it) take longer than 8 weeks to get back to normal?


I'm semi tempted to suggest that she delays it until after the holiday, as it's not an emergency, but if she gets offered a date in July, say, should probably go for it?

Edit: just to add that this is WDW, to give people an idea of the walking etc involved - we were originally planning a couple of park heavy days, but even if not dawn till dusk, there is a considerable amount of exertion involved!

[THE WIZARD]

I had the full job not keyhole and It took me 4 weeks before I did not need a little sleep in the afternoon after doing a walk around my village. 5th week I went too far, feeling so good, but had to ring the DH to come and get me as I was a bit too knackered to walk home. 6th week was feeling pretty much myself but I personally could not have done every day at one of the parks but that's just me. A lot depends on whether its keyhole or full operation plus how fit you are before having it and also whether you listen to your surgeons advise given or think you know better. First 3 weeks I literally fell asleep while friends where with me and they just left (quite funny really but they had been warned). Only she will know how she feels & how big a op she actually has.

[weeleighluigi]

Would insurance cover her 2 months after the op?

[jo williams]

We’ve just came back with my friend who had her surgery 11 weeks previous full hysterectomy, she also had full blown sepsis after the surgery, she started to build up her strength 3 weeks post op by slowly going for short walks. She done really well and better than expected she was advised no major coasters but she did them and was fine. The only thing she struggled with was the heat as she went into full blown menopause. She will need to take into account, every aspect of what she is doing like pulling suitcases etc. I think it’s a person by person thing and recovery is different in each individual.

[returnplanning]

Thank you for sharing - I completely appreciate it is an individual thing and is somewhat unpredictable, but it's given me some food for thought. It's not an emergency op, so might talk to her about doing it after the holiday, unless the symptoms will cause her too much problems on the holiday. There will be lots of people around to help with lifting/suitcases etc, but it's more making sure that she is able to do the coasters and parks etc with the grandchildren.

[JLH]

I had the full operation middle of October and went to Disney Paris at Christmas so obviously for a shorter period but didnt need any rest breaks etc but I was a lot younger than I am now. I struggled to do all day this year in Florida in August and I had nothing wrong with me!

[Cptfrancium]

It’s worth checking how soon she can fly post anaesthetic.
If she is considering delaying be aware that the hospital MAY remove her from the list if she is not able to accept a date within a 6 week period.

[sparklegirl]

I had a full op last Feb and was off work for a little over 9 weeks. I was absolutely wiped out from the surgery for the first 4-5 weeks and walking short distances for some time really tired me. I also got a wee infection in my wound and it didnt fully close for almost the full 9 weeks. Its actually quite a big surgery and I was surprised at how it affected me and I am a relatively walking fit 43 year old. I think I would have struggled with the long flight too.

[Tinklebell]

I think she would also need to carefully check with her travel insurance company to ensure they will cover her. If not covered then either don't go or postpone the op (provided still covered in this instance also). if anything happened out in Florida she would be left with a hefty bill. Insurance companies generally have exclusions for if waiting for an op or if have already seen a doctor for it prior to the holiday being booked. And all the rides have warnings on them which the insurance might then use to not pay up if she relapsed on one of them.

Sorry to bring it down to money but USA hospital bills for tourists can be huge.

[Guest]

What Tinkerbell said 😁
My surgeon said that it was a big operation that people didn’t allow enough time to recover from, because of the pressures to get back to normal life. She said it would take three months before I started feeling anything like normal and she was right, You can’t even drive for the first six weeks because you can’t do an emergency stop.
I was in the front row on Splash (Drench!) Mountain yesterday, I think I tried to do one about halfway down!