You know what drives patients mad? When their friend had knee surgery and was back at the gym in six weeks, but they’re still struggling with stairs at eight weeks. “Why is my recovery taking so long?” they ask. Fair question.

The simple answer is that everyone starts from a different place, even when the surgery looks identical on paper.

Take age. A 50-year-old who’s been active their whole life versus someone who’s 70 and hasn’t done much exercise in years – totally different healing capacity. Not saying older people can’t recover well, but the timelines are just different.

Pre-surgery fitness is huge too. Someone who’s been regularly swimming before their hip replacement versus someone who’s been avoiding movement because of pain for months. Guess which group bounces back faster?

Work makes a difference. Office worker versus someone in construction – they’re not going back to the same physical demands. The office worker might be fine with modified duties pretty quickly. The construction worker? That’s a longer conversation.

Living situation matters more than people think. Ground floor apartment versus two-storey house with the bedroom upstairs. Having a partner who can drive you to appointments versus catching public transport. It all adds up.

When you look at recovery planning across different surgical fields, there’s similar challenges everywhere. Purely for example purposes only, even something like cosmetic surgery in toowoomba deals with explaining why some people heal faster than others – just different surgeries, same human variability.

Previous injuries complicate things too. Had ankle problems? That affects how you walk post-surgery. Old back injury? Changes how you move during recovery.

Bottom line – your recovery is your recovery. Comparing timelines with other people is just going to frustrate you.