Help me think through "no heavy lifting"

October 8, 2023 5:45 AM

Once I get out of the hospital (I'm FINE, I really am fine, nobody worry), I'm going to be strictly enjoined from "heavy lifting" for about two months. I'm trying to work through what that means for regular ol' life. I've thought of: packages (ask neighbors for help, don't order heavy stuff), hauling groceries (get delivery, bring in a little at a time), laundry (there's a pickup/delivery service in my town), possibly snow shoveling (ask neighbors for help). What am I missing?
posted by humbug to Health & Fitness (30 answers total)

When I couldn't lift after surgery and I had a produce box coming, I emailed the company and told them to ask the delivery driver to please knock when he arrived and then I'd open the door and please put the box on my kitchen counter which is just inside the door. They were happy to do that.

If your surgery is torso-based you really don't want to bend too much either. I suspect instacart type grocery delivery won't come into your kitchen counter, but if you need to avoid bending/squatting etc., and they can't put the stuff on your counter for whatever reason, consider putting a little table outside your door (like a tV tray or two?) so that the groceries aren't low down where you have to bend to pick each item up one at a time. Ditto laundry (you don't want to bend to lift it when they deliver it).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:57 AM on October 8, 2023 [14 favorites]

A few thoughts:

Do you have pets?
I have two small dogs and don't think of them as heavy, but I messed up my shoulder a while back and kept reinjuring myself picking up my dogs when I stopped doing just about everything else. I was blind to my dog lifting.

Do you have any kind of small wheeled cart? Now would be an excellent time to temporarily repurpose it so you can nudge stuff around your house. Not even real heavy stuff, but just skipping out the compounding effect of carrying ~5-10 lbs back and forth can help a lot while you're healing.

Will lifting your arms be especially tiring? How do you shower/shampoo. How do you reach things on tall shelves. How do you change your bed sheets. How do you do your dishes and put them away.
posted by phunniemee at 5:58 AM on October 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

How much will you be able to clean? Carrying a vacuum around seems like a no go. Lifting things off counters to wipe under them. Things like that.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:08 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

So, depending on how likely stuff is to get stolen from your front porch, you could put a trolley/cart on the front porch with a sign asking for parcels/deliveries to be left on top of it, so that you could wheel the trolley/cart inside.

I really like this trolley/cart - it's lightweight and has an excellent turning circle. And it can carry 20 kilograms (44 pounds) on the top shelf and 40 kilograms (88 pounds) on the bottom shelf. And it folds up small enough to tuck inside a cupboard.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:16 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Will you be cooking for yourself (I suppose probably if you're getting groceries delivered)? How heavy are your pots and pans? Also how heavy are your food containers?

Like, if you currently cook in cast iron this might be a good time to pick up a couple of lightweight pans (or plan meals that don't require you to use your heavier pans), and if you usually buy beverages in gallon or even 2-liter sizes it might be a good idea to switch down to something smaller.
posted by mskyle at 6:19 AM on October 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

Making your bed. It was the major thing that I forgot about after my surgery because it's not technically heavy lifting, but it uses all the same 'bits'.
posted by Vortisaur at 6:57 AM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

I had chest surgery — bending & high things were also painful. So my advice is to go around your place beforehand and take down everything you need to accessible height, e.g. no mugs in a high cupboard, put your favourite pan on the kitchen bench where you can reach it etc. A spinning shelf for inside the fridge so no reaching.
posted by socky_puppy at 7:34 AM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

Do you have young children, grand children, nieces, nephews, god children, etc? Definitely tell the parents of any children that aren't yours to prepare said kiddos that you won't be able to lift them up for a while.

As it's that time of year: pumpkins? And any other Halloween stuff such as ladders if you're decorating your home.

Not sure if this will be within your time frame but are you planing on cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving or Christmas?

You mentioned small amounts of shopping. A trunk lid can be heavy, so prepare to put things on the back seat instead if you've got a car.
posted by underclocked at 7:41 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Lifting your body in and out of bed. I just helped someone with a mitral valve replacement who could lift nothing post operation. He bought a recliner to sleep in and it kept him in a specific position for sleeping so he didn't injure the incision. He also avoided the whole prone to standing issue during the recovery. Some recliners will even assist with standing by lifting up.

Move everything that could possibly cause to you fall.
posted by effluvia at 7:58 AM on October 8, 2023 [9 favorites]

As effluvia mentions, getting out of bed was a problem for me when my back was injured. Raising my bed by adding an extra mattress (a futon, actually) made it much much easier. I'm back to the lower bed now but am considering building leg extensions for it, as the extra height was so nice for getting up.
posted by anadem at 8:05 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Get extra groceries now and put them away, so you only have to fill in fresh produce for the 1st few weeks. Make sure you have foods that are easier to cook; you may not feel like sectioning a whole chicken, and lifting a 20 lb turkey sounds like a bad idea. If you make a pot of soup, putting it away may be too much lifting. Walk through the house, do any tidying and vacuuming. If there's an AC unit that needs to be put away, or garden tasks, do that before. There are probably videos to teach some physical therapy skills for getting out of bed, getting up from a chair, etc.

Surgery is a form of physical trauma, healing is work, so do whatever you can to be good to yourself. A multivitamin and extra bran can give you a little extra boost. There are tasty frozen meals and delivery for good nutrition. Ask them where you should push yourself, sometimes walking and gently moving is a good idea, not always.
posted by theora55 at 8:06 AM on October 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

No-one's said it yet, so I guess it's gonna hafta be me: pooping.

If you can avoid heavy foods for a while, it might avoid screaming toilet nightmare scenes. My hospital specifically mentioned it in the post-surgery care handbook.
posted by scruss at 8:39 AM on October 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

+1 to the pooping issues, especially if you're on opioids. It pings all the same muscles that you're trying not to work if you have a lift limit. I was legit frightened a couple times that my belly button cut was going to pop (it did not, my surgeon is very very good, but). Take any and all warnings about pain meds and constipation very very seriously.

It sounds like you're going to be using delivery services for groceries, but as you feel better and start doing your own errands again, beware of pushing heavy carts. ("I'm not lifting, it's pushing! Oh, wait, same muscles. Bullocks.")

Find someone to put our your trash, if you live in an house and have to put out cans (or someone to carry out your trash if you're in an apartment and use dumpsters) [but I'm guessing house since you mention snow shoveling]. Curbside cans are surprisingly heavy, let alone when they're loaded.

You mention snow. What are you doing about lawn care as we move from mowing season to leaf season? Pushing our lawn mower was above my lift limit.
posted by joycehealy at 8:50 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm dealing with a back injury right now. Two current obstacles for me are full gallons of milk, and watering the plants.
posted by hydrophonic at 9:01 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have had 3 surgeries on my lower back (L4-L5). I defined heavy lifting differently based on my age and what kind of shape my core was in prior to surgery. If I had to boil it down to a sentence or two, I would say heavy lifting is what will cause you pain and/or set you back vis a vis the surgery reason.

If it hurts don't do it. I also think a two month time frame will feel different in the 2nd month than you felt in the first month. As always, use caution and common sense.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:08 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Let your pain be your guide. But be careful when you start feeling better. You will start feeling your oats and will over exert. And yes, getting out of bed is a problem.
posted by Windopaene at 9:34 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Will it affect your commute at all? Occasionally I find I need to lift my bike up physically, and it sounds like that won’t be possible for you.

Seconding pet chores as I find they frequently involve bending over or squatting, which as noted use some overlapping musculature.
posted by eirias at 9:45 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Taking out the trash, too. Might be worth it asking/paying someone to come once a week and do all the lifting-adjacent chores. My list from the surgeon included vacuuming and gardening.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:08 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, everybody! I feel much more ready to make this work now.

Clarification: No surgery. I'm getting a gizmo called a "picc line" installed for antibiotic delivery over the next several weeks, and too-enthusiastic lifting can cause it to get out of place.
posted by humbug at 10:44 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

If you have cats: cat litter. containers of.

Make sure your furniture, any large planters, etc. are where you want them and can use them.

Try to find a hireable handy person and/or odd jobs person before you need them. Yes, I know there are gig work services, but you want some people you can mostly trust and can reach on short notice, and who have some motivation to be actually helpful to you.

I'm not sure what your weight limit would be, but if you keep a food processor, stand mixer, bread machine, instant pot, etc. in one place and move them to use them in another place, that might be worth strategizing..
posted by amtho at 12:04 PM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Also: if you have books + downtime you might be tempted to reorganize them. If you're reorganizing them, you will be tempted to move stacks of >1, and you will be mentally engaged with that task, and you might forget not to lift heavy things. So maybe organize them enough that their state doesn't bother you too much.

I, personally, would need to put reminder notes to myself in strategic places so I wouldn't forget not to lift heavy things. If there were a human version of a pet e-collar that would prevent this, I'd get one... but I can't think of an equivalent.

So, I might try to set myself up with a very low-weight but absorbing activity like watercolor, knitting, embroidery, or learning a programming language.
posted by amtho at 12:10 PM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

The things that caught me by surprise for my own 2 months of no heavy lifting was (a) kitty litter and (b) taking the garbage out. The kitty litter issue contributed to the garbage situation as well. If you don't have help, I highly recommend seeing if any cats in your house would be ok to switching to the lightweight varieties of litter.

Also if you have any little humans in your life, the urge to not just pick them up like you're used to is hard... its just such an instinctual action; I caught myself lifting my nephew up more than once.
posted by cgg at 12:43 PM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I recently hurt my finger and thought I was being so careful not to use it... then I got into bed and yanked up my weighted blanket. Learn from my mistake.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:07 PM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

With the picc line, you might just be limited to not lifting with that particular arm, which is a lot more manageable. You still want to take it easy, of course, in general.
posted by mochapickle at 1:17 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: mochapickle is correct; I can do whatever with my other arm, which should cover me for a lot of things. I earnestly don't want to push the limits, though!
posted by humbug at 3:33 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh, that's good news. In that case -- I haven't had a picc line but I've had a lot of vascular surgeries on my upper inner left arm, and I had the same restrictions for a while. And the short answer is to be gentle with yourself in general. And the little-bit-longer answer is that within a few days you really start to get into the habit of relying on your other arm.

When I'd had procedures done, I'd just sort of let that affected arm go limp and only use it for the gentlest of assists. You start opening the fridge with one hand, rinsing dishes with one hand, carrying in a single bag of groceries with one arm. Sometimes you'll use your key to unlock your door and push the door open with your foot. If you're opening a bottle, place the bottle between your knees and twist with your good hand.

Bags with handles and shoulder straps are super useful.

You'll also want to pay attention to how you're sleeping. That was a harder thing for me to get used to -- if you usually sleep on the side where the picc line will be, you'll need to start sleeping on your back or modify your position to protect it. I made a pillow ramp to keep myself from sleeping on my affected side.
posted by mochapickle at 4:23 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Human version of an e-collar for this issue: one big fluffy mitten.
posted by amtho at 7:38 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Look into waterproof coverings for the affected arm, and a hand-held shower attachment (and maybe a shower chair) -- the recommendation is to take baths instead of showers, but then exiting the tub safely can be a chore. For shopping, or just carrying things from room to room, you might like a click and carry bag device for the working arm.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:50 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Things that I didn't realise involved exerting force until the shoulder of my dominant arm froze painfully:

• Pushing heavy doors open
• Flushing the toilet (probably depends on what sort of flush you have)
• Lowering myself into the bath, and pulling myself back up out of it
• Getting heavy pots and pans out of the cupboard
• Actually using them to cook - in particular, a pan full of water is a heavy object to move from sink to stovetop
• Moving a stack of plates or bowls
• Refilling the water softener salt container
• Refilling the kettle or the water jug
• Going to catch something I'd dropped or knocked over.

posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:26 AM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Is there an enterprising teen in your neighborhood who would like some pocket money? If so, consider scheduling them for a short period of time every day after school (or every few days - whatever you need and can afford). You can save up a lot of these tasks - watering plants, bringing in packages, unloading groceries, changing cat litter, wheeling trash bins to the curb, shoveling snow, etc - for that neighbor's visit. Most of these tasks are in a teen's wheelhouse, and their parents may be grateful to you for overseeing their learning. My guess is that 20 mins each day would be better than an hour every few days. The tasks stack up fast but don't take a lot of time to conquer when someone has two strong arms. Good luck!
posted by equipoise at 11:05 AM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]