My favorite surgery memory is when they say " Count backwards from 100", I get to "99, 9-", then, " Wake up Mr. Fowler."
They tell you not to lift anything heavy. But we had a blizzard 2 days after my surgery, and there was no one else, so... I shoveled snow. It was a very light snow, and I took extra care to not even tighted the abdominal muscles--all lifting done strictly with my arms. I also shoveled at intervals so the depth of the snow was only 2-3 inches each time.
Only after effects were a few twinges as the adhesions broke up over a few month period.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags