I had Big Surgery about 5 weeks ago -- total hip replacement. I've hobbled around for a decade or more with pain in my hip, and finally decided to have it done.
I've never had surgery before where I had to stay overnight in the hospital. Interesting experience; not terrible or anything, just interesting. The pain was manageable most of the time, and I was up and moving within hours. It took about a week for me to start to feel somewhat normal again, and now I'm almost back to 100%.
I viewed this recovery time as an opportunity to reassess my 'schedule' -- that daily list of things I do. I obviously couldn't go to the gym, run on the treadmill, etc. so I made do with what I could do and gave myself permission to heal. Along the way, I got out of the habit of writing, but that was okay -- I was taking drugs and doing therapy, so I expected that to lapse.
Now I'm trying to get back into a workable schedule and it's surprisingly hard. I *want* to write, but I need to find that golden time of the day when I can block out the world and go into that world I'm creating. I'm getting there, but it's a matter of retraining those muscles, too, just like I'm retraining my physical muscles.
I'll report back in a few months about how long it took. I'm only 5 weeks in; I'm betting another week or two, and I'll be in the swing again.
I hope.
