Lumpectomy recovery time

Are you having lymph node removal too? My breast healed very quickly but my armpit hasn’t yet. I had surgery on Dec 20th. 
I was signed off for 4 weeks 

Hi Burgess and welcome to the forum. It really depends on your job that you do for example is it a physical job requiring lots of lifting or moving things? You are likely to be somewhat tender after the operation so making sure that you don't get knocked is important. 

What's your thoughts about it all and how are you feeling about the operation? 

Hi, my surgeon told me to expect to be off for 6 weeks. I booked 5 weeks off and seriously could have been back after 2-3 weeks. I have a desk job so not very physical but I think it very much depends on how your body reacts. The first week was hard, painful and tiring, but it began to ease fairly quickly.  Best wishes 

Hi I’m a teacher in a secondary school so I teach food practical lesson so can be fairly active. I think they said they were taking out lymph nodes to check; feel really worried about it all x

I was automatically signed off for 2 weeks.  

Hi Burgess , I expected to be off for a couple of weeks but it ended up as 4 months! I was a special needs teacher, lots of physical moving and handling involved. Also each op is different - I had a lumpectomy for what turned out to be a benign fibroadenoma many years ago, had a tiny scar about an inch long, and was back to work within a week. But this time I had a lumpectomy/ wide local excision plus sentinel node sampling. The surgeon used the same incision to access both the lump and the nodes, and my scar was much longer. It healed fine but took its time, and in the end I was signed off until 4 weeks after my radiotherapy, 4 months in total. My school was very supportive. 
But others here with different jobs have felt better for getting back to work much earlier than I did and some worked throughout chemo and rads. As GRANNY59 says, it really does vary so it’s hard to generalise. I found it hard to admit that I wasn’t ready and felt guilty that I was ‘letting people down’ but I definitely needed that time. It’s very hard to put yourself first, I’ve found!
Wishing you well, keep posting and asking questions, I was so glad to find this site and be in contact with people who’d gone through similar experiences. Love and hugs, HFxx