Benefits Post Surgery?

Other than the obvious answer, "being alive" (which of course, is an incredible positive benefit and blessing!):

1). What was your greatest benefit/positive experience/improvement/blessing, immediately after surgery?

2) What has been your greatest benefit/positive experience/improvement/blessing to date, with regards to having had surgery?

(i.e. what did you get out of the experience over and above your life extension?)

Thanks again! You folks are amazing!

Finding out how much support I had from loved ones and friends was wonderful. I couldn't believe how many people helped me in different ways and how kind they were.

Longer-term, I feel as though I developed more perspective on life, appreciating the little and big pleasures more and not feeling so caught up in the rat race.

And, when I needed an appendectomy a few years later, the surgery wasn't scary at all .

A couple of years after having mitral and aortics replaced, I was diagnosed with (wait for it - its long) Axialised Non-Radiographic Ankylosing Spondylitis, a congenital, serious and degenerative destruction of my spinal column and rib cage, I realised that having survived dying (my valves had been TOTALLY destroyed by Infective Endocarditis) and being revived and operated-on, that if I could survive THAT, then I can handle pretty much anything that came my way (within reason!!). So the lesson is - if you have been through this and come out at the other end, then you ought to be able to face up to most crap that is thrown your way.. It has shown me that I have much much more emotional and physical strength than I ever thought possible.

1. I started exercising. Those habits have served me well since I now have various difficulties that need physical therapy.
2. Medical staff really want to help. I find this forum is often denigrating, cynical and negative towards doctors, nurses, etc. My OHS brought me in touch with a host of people who's reason for getting out of bed is to help me. They are people, so they can have good days, bad days, can be exactly right and really wrong, but the motivation is true. If they make a mistake, that's because they are, like me, human.