What to tell family friends during recovery weeks post surgery

[anonSA]

Hi there

I’m not a sufferer, I am the wife of a sufferer. My husband wants to get the surgery done in the coming months, we can afford it and have already consulted a surgeon and it all looks positive. My husband has no issue with time off from work but here is our problem.
We don’t want to have to tell people about this surgery, because really, it’s no ones business. However, we have many friends/aquaintences - not close enough to disclose this surgery to but not distant enough to not want to enquire or be concerned when the don’t see us for a few weeks. These are mostly friends we have in church who, if we miss a service, will, out of concern for out health and welfare, call/text to ask if we are ok. What can we tell them? We don’t want to be rude or blunt, like say “none of your business” and then walk away, as we care about these people. We just don’t want to have to disclose this. I’ve read other threads where you can say “I’ve had a gland/cyst removed from my chest” and this sounds like a good line but what if they enquire further? If they ask “what kind of gland” or something? We don’t want to say we are going away/vacation because it’s a relatively small area and they may see me at the shops or something. This is actually very likely. Please could I have some ideas to work around this.