Neobladder - Caregiver time off from work - ideas?

Hello Cynthia, (I was really upset I was not the only one in the world by the way)

What you will find is that there is not hard and fast rule to the question of how much time you need to take off. For some a week after leaving the hospital will work for others they need more time. It depends on ones condition prior to the surgery and and complications from the surgery. Also make sure you factor in the time that he will be in the hospital that is usually between five and ten days. Again that depends on the doctor and complications and how quickly the intestines wake up.

It depends is the answer as you are finding. I had an infection in my suture site and Ed had to help me day to day with that and I had trouble with nausea and was depressed and if not for him keeping after me to keep hydrated and to eat a little I probably would have not done as well as I did. I had been dealing with radiation, chemotherapy and surgical procedures for over a year prior to my Radical Cystectomy so I was not going into surgery in the best of shape to start with so my condition was not the same as someone who did not have these factors.

As a rule two to three weeks should do the trick but you might want to talk about going back to work part time sooner if all is going well. A lot depends on the doctor also for example in Mikes last post he talks about not getting the GI tube out too soon. My doctor does not use them as a matter of course and I have never had one and that is only one example of differences between doctors and their standard practices.

You are doing the right thing by trying to plan ahead and there is power in knowledge but part of that knowledge in this case needs to be that there can be variations and that is ok as we all just have similar not identical paths.