Surgery Recovery Strategy Session
Struggling to put together all the advice you’ve gotten after surgery?
For busy professionals who are struggling to get back to their active lifestyle post-orthopedic surgery and want a focused plan to get them back to the activities they love as quickly as possible. This session reviews your entire picture and gives you a focused plan for the next 30 days.
Starting With Where You Are Now
You wake up and, before you even move, you’re creating a mental to-do list and rearranging your day to avoid the things that cause pain or drain you. What shirt can you wear that doesn’t require lifting your arm too high. What can you do for lunch that you can carry while on crutches? Will you have enough energy for that meeting later?
You've gotten good at the workarounds. But there’s a voice inside that keeps asking, “is this normal?” and “how am I supposed to get better when I always feel this tired?”
That Moment
There's a moment (a small one) that you keep coming back to.
You're walking to your car after work. No crutches to manage or limp to monitor. No mental calculation about how far the parking lot is. Just walking.
There’s a nice breeze. Your bag is on your shoulder. And you realize you haven't thought about your injury in the last two hours.
Two hours.
You stop for just a second and take a breath.
Then you keep walking.
My Story
The garbage can was metal, dented, and ugly. It was also the best I could do.
I had dragged it next to my desk and flipped it upside down so I had somewhere to prop my boot. My crutches were on the floor, barely within reach. Getting up meant a whole production, so I stayed put until I absolutely had to get up. I stared at my computer screen full of words I couldn't make mean anything.
Then an email came in from my boss. There was a big event just four days away. Of course, my name was on the early morning setup list.
I sat there, boot on the rim of a garbage can, and felt something crack open a little.
I kept thinking I just needed to try harder, find a way to adjust, or be more efficient. That had always worked before.
Surgery recovery does not work that way.
The shift came when I finally stopped asking what I should be doing more of and started asking what I needed to stop doing. Sounds obvious, but it wasn’t. That one question changed the whole direction of things.
Nine surgeries across nearly every major joint will teach you things no textbook covers.
What I learned, slowly and the hard way, is that the space between your surgical team and your actual life is where most people get lost.
That's the space I work in now. And I know every corner of it.
What You Get
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Pre-session assessment
You fill it out before we meet, so you don’t have to keep repeating the same story you’ve been telling everyone for the past month. We dive in deeper from the start. I use it to design a plan for you as a whole person, not just a surgical patient. My goal is to figure out what’s blocking your recovery and what we need to do so you can make progress again
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45-minute one-on-one conversation
Our time is focused on your full situation: your body, your work, your actual life. You don’t have to take your Aunt Ida’s perfect advice on what she thinks you need, or scroll through the depths of Reddit looking for advice.
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Goal review
You'll leave knowing what you're working toward and why it matters. Instead of moving through recovery on autopilot, we identify what is going to make the biggest difference in your recovery and how to get beyond the roadblocks that keep coming up, like poor sleep, focusing on the pain, or doing too much. Everyone faces different challenges.
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One-page plan
Everything we cover is summarized and sent to you. You don’t have to hold the whole thing in your head or try to remember what you decided. Open it Monday morning and know exactly where to start.
Why It Works
This works because recovery requires a whole-life approach, and you’ve been trying to solve it with exercises, workarounds, and random facts.
You’ve probably been googling recovery advice for weeks now after peppering your surgeon and PT with questions. That didn't quiet the noise in your head because information alone doesn't tell you what to do with your specific situation and your specific week.
Not only have I done the research, but I’ve been through multiple surgeries and learned the hard way what actions make a difference in moving your recovery along.
You’ll walk away feeling more confident about where your actions will make the biggest impact on your recovery.
Who This is For
This is for you if:
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You've been dealing with that low hum of what am I even supposed to be doing right now. That hum that follows you from your morning coffee all the way to your collapse on the couch at 9pm.
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You’re craving the feeling of waking up and not having to create a new plan each day.
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You've tried pushing through on your own, but it left you more worn down and no closer to answers.
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You're ready for one focused session where someone looks at the whole picture with you, even if part of you is scared it won't help.
What it Costs
For $90, you get:
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Pre-session assessment to move past the surface level details and dive into the things you really want to talk about ($120 value)
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1:1 conversation to put together all the pieces you’ve been carrying ($90 value)
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Goal review to identify what will make the biggest difference in getting you to where you want to be ($50 value)
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One-page plan so you have the clarity of knowing what your next steps are ($100 value)
It's one session that provides $360 worth of value.
$90 is three sessions of physical therapy copays, two months of a gym membership you haven't been able to use, or a week of takeout ordered because cooking felt too hard.
This is 45 minutes that gives you a plan for the next 30 days.
FAQs
Q: What happens after I enroll? A: You’ll be directed to my HIPPA-compliant software to schedule an appointment that fits your schedule. If you can’t find a time that works for you, contact me at laura@turnstonewellness.com, let me know what days/times usually work for you (and what time zone you’re in!), and we’ll find a time that works for both of us! You’ll also be sent a pre-session assessment form. Take your time in completing this form, but don’t worry about getting it perfect. There are no right answers, just honest ones. I want to know what’s really keeping you up, or what you’re struggling with right now.
Q: What if I've tried things like this before and they didn't work? A: It’s frustrating when you try something and it doesn’t work for you. Please include a note in your pre-session assessment about what you’ve already tried. That will guide our conversation and can help us create a plan that fits your unique situation.
Q: Do you give medical advice? A: As a board-certified coach I don’t prescribe, diagnose or give medical advice. I do, however, understand the basics of many orthopedic surgeries and have logged hundreds of hours in physical therapy to heal after my own ankle, knee, hip and shoulder surgeries. So, I bring an understanding of the patient experience and know where the gaps often lie.
Q: How is coaching different from therapy? A: Therapy often focuses on healing emotional pain, mental health challenges, trauma, or psychological patterns that may be affecting a person's well-being. Coaching focuses on helping someone achieve specific goals, improve performance, build skills, or create a desired future. In practice, the two can sometimes overlap, but therapy is centered on mental health treatment, while coaching is centered on personal or professional development and helping you reach your goals.
Q: Is coaching covered by health insurance? A: Unfortunately, health insurance doesn’t cover most health and wellness coaching. However, you may use funds from your HSA (health savings account) or FSA (flexible spending account) for reimbursement of health coaching costs. You will need a physician’s Letter of Medical Necessity for a specific diagnosis or prevention plan. I will issue a detailed invoice that you can share with your HSA/FSA provider to get reimbursed. I accept credit cards or payment via Venmo.
Your Future
You wake up and your first thought is not about what hurts or how you’re going to get through the day.
You already know what today looks like. You know what to do with the hard moment if it comes. You know what to skip and what to protect. That’s a new feeling, which you didn't have a month ago.
Your boss sends a message asking for a project update. You write back without that second layer of stress underneath everything. There’s no hesitating as you figure out how much energy the email is going to take.
You're not finished or fully recovered. You know that. But finished is not what you needed. You needed a plan that was built around your actual life and understood what you really wanted.
Book your session. Let's find your next steps together.