After my vacation, I had one day, one single day, when I was refreshed and energetic, and I did a boatload of work done, and it felt amazing. And then I started getting sick, and I got the surgery, and I was recovering from the surgery, and now I’m a wreck. I feel completely useless. There’s no energy, I have to take enormous breaks between short bursts of work. I hate this. One day. One single day of feeling energetic and productive is all I got out of my vacation. Drat.
It’s been a month since the surgery and I’m still completely useless. I did the revisions on my article, submitted, and got the final acceptance. I finished my new article and submitted. I did the taxes for my organization. I wrapped up the competition I’m running. I have 800 words of a new article. I’m almost done with the review I’m submitting next week. I’ve done 2 out of 3 syllabi for next semester. But all of this is happening against the background of me staring stupidly at the TV for hours.
I haven’t been able to leave a check for my RA. I haven’t sent a friend’s coat that I promised to send in two weeks ago. I can’t get myself together to buy a birthday gift for Klara’s friend. I have a load of laundry that hasn’t been folded for 8 days. I can’t even make up a label for a bunch of daycare wipes. I’m weeks behind on emails and even on text messages. And it’s all like this. I hate this, this stinks.
OK, rant over. I need to go rest.
Clarissa's Blog 
Not too bad for someone in vacation.
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….replace vacation by surgery recovery, it’s more appropriate…
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I’m ready for the recovery to end. I hate being an invalid.
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Any chance you can take another real vacation? This is obviously not the usual situation. Also redo bloodwork? Maybe there’s something else going on, like anemia or thyroid issues?
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Another vacation is a good idea.
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It could be worse, you could be watching political livestreams on YouTube and getting drawn into the “chat” that consists mostly of rival political tribes baying at each other.
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Your body’s been through major trauma, try being nice to it instead of punishing it more by resenting the time it needs to heal. Be grateful for the signals it’s sending you and pay attention to them.
You often mention it’s useless to try to reason with a toddler, it’s just as useless to get angry that your body needs you to slow down and take it easy a while longer.
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Yes, as Cliff says. Also, one month is a very short time for surgery recuperation, in my experience it can take several months to feel 100% again. Plus from what you listed you have already been very productive during this time, so maybe another proper vacation would help?
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you may be dealing with very typical after effects of anesthesia. unfortunately, they can take a while to go away.
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