First and foremost, I hope the surgery went well and that you're healing and getting back to normal faster than expected. As far as 12ga 3.5", as others have said, there's no need to shoot that anymore. Period. You can shoot light loads in 2.75" out of your current gun with #9s and hammer turkeys with negligible recoil. If you want to move to a sub gauge, great. I think 20s are the new 10s with modern loads. But you can just easily lighten up what you're shooting out of that 12ga and have similar recoil as the 20 and better patterns than the 3.5".
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