I GOT A DATE!!!! (Finally)

[Valery_V (imported)]

Congratulations!

I wish you a quick and complete recovery.

:balsmilie

[Evolve]

CONGRATULATIONS- That first day after, free of suspense is just pure bliss. I wish you a full and speedy recovery :balsmilie

[not61fin (imported)]

Congratulations!

[JustMe (imported)]

Congratulations hope you'll have a speedy recovery

[Neutrum260725]

Congratulations!!! Hope everything went well and you recover fast.

[wanasoso2]

That's great news. You seems quite well and I wish you the best and rapid recovery. Your determination is always an inspiration.

Take care.

[Losethem (imported)]

It looks like everything came off without a hitch. Congrats! :balsmilie

[JesusA]

Congratulations on finally getting there. It's taken far tong with too many roadblocks along the way. I hope that your struggles help to make it easier for those who follow. You've been a great role model as you've struggled with the bureaucracy.

[WheelyFixed]

Thank you to all for the support and good wishes!

Still quite uncomfortable, but possibly a bit less. I'm only using Tylenol (which doesn't seem to help much - definitely in the "Pills you mother gives you" class) However it is tolerable, and I'd just as soon not go to the drugstore to pick up the oxycodone script that they put in for me.

Overall though it is not as bad as I was afraid that it might be, not sure if that is normal or if I'm getting some advantage from the reduction of pain sensitivity below my injury level. I did see the advice in the post-op instructions that I should spend time walking (don't I wish!!) and that I could resume "normal activities" but I'm inclined to keep taking it very easy for at least the next few days...

I changed the dressing a few hours ago, and I hope it is just swelling, but they seem to have left more of the scrotum than I would have liked... However I'm not going to make any judgement until I've done a lot more healing....

[WheelyFixed]

Pain is less today, still uncomfortable, but not as bad... Still a lot of swelling and bruising / discoloration. Doing w/o the Tylenol today, as I hate using pain killers in general, but it's marginal.

WheelyFixed

[WheelyFixed]

Well a few changes... I got rid of the Foley a few hours ago, so am back to my usual intermittent catheter routine - which is not fun at this point, but I can manage it. Access is harder right now because of swelling, will see how that changes...

I've also gotten rid of the jockstrap and huge rolls of gauze, so I'm back to my normal underwear w/ a 'male-guard' pad

Most significantly, the pain is down to a point where it's less than my normal level from all the other stuff that makes me a perpetual 3 on the scale...

So getting better slowly.

WheelyFixed

[JesusA]

Good news. It's great to hear that you are on the mend, and more quickly than I remember others posting. I hope that you will find this to be a great improvement in your life.

[WheelyFixed]

Good news. It's great to hear that you are on the mend, and more quickly than I remember others posting. I hope that you will find this to be a great improvement in your life.

Many thanks, especially for your work in making SOC v8 as good as it is, so that I could follow it's path...

I'm not sure if my rapid seeming recovery is due to my doctor (presumably) using 'latest and greatest' techniques or my injury related wonky pain sensitivity, or a combination of both...

Latest has been an odd pain in my left thigh (right one is fine) and a certain level of numbness sort of like that distant muffled feel your mouth has as dental anesthetic starts wearing off... I called the urology folks and the nurse that eventually called me back said it was probably referred pain and general strangeness from the poking around all the nerves in that area. I was told not to worry about it for now, but call if it gets worse...

Otherwise healing seems to be continuing, w/ the surgical glue flaking off. I'm still getting small amounts of seepage / bleeding, but again I was told that is normal...

Downside is that between the incision and the swelling, I'm finding it harder to cath than I did before, just because I can't easily dig my penis out of hiding.... (You know it's bad when you envy the "endowment" of the guys in the medical how-to diagrams... )

WheelyCurious

[WheelyFixed]

Pain remains about the same, and I'm still having some very slight bleeding from the incision. Cathing remains quite a challenge, and I'm mildly concerned that the amount of poking and squeezing I need to do in order to get my penis out from behind the incision and swollen remains of my scrotum are not particularly good for the incision.... (it does seem to aggravate the bleeding...)

But progress is continuing...

ART

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

Should you have maybe left the Foley in longer?

What if anything is your plan for future shrinkage? Or do you think that won't happen?

[WheelyFixed]

Should you have maybe left the Foley in longer?

What if anything is your plan for future shrinkage? Or do you think that won't happen?

It is a tough call on the Foley... They actually didn't want to put one in at all until I really pushed hard for them to do it. Foleys have their own medical risks and complications, particularly a high UTI infection risk, (apparently bacteria like to travel up along the outside of the tube) and current medical practice is to minimize their use. The hardware associated with them is also far from comfortable, the tube is annoying but worse is the multiple hard plastic ports and lumps on it... I actually left it in for about a day longer than they wanted me to, but it was getting to be increasingly uncomfortable....

In terms of future shrinkage, my doc claims that a lot of my problem is due to the 'pubic fat pad' and says I should try to lose weight (I can't argue very much, though I don't feel like I'm 'huge') He has said that if I continue to have problems he could have the plastic surgery dept look at trying to get rid of it w/ liposuction...

I'm not terribly worried about further shrinkage however... From all that I've read here, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, is that the limit on shrinkage is about what you had when hitting puberty, and that is about where I think I'm at...

Some ways I wish EA allowed photos, or that there was a good site where I could post them, just so I could get an opinion on how good a job my doc did... (And possibly compare to others having had similar work) Right now my incision is a huge lump that feels like he sewed it up with a serger, and it feels like there is a lot of tissue left (possibly from the inner sacks?) under the stitching. (There are no visible stitches, I'm assuming he used self dissolving stitches under the surgical glue on the surface...) From the reports of others, this will supposedly go away as I heal, but it would be nice to have an 'experienced opinion' to confirm it...

WheelyFixed

[WheelyFixed]

I am experiencing increasing difficulty in intermittent cathing - this afternoon it took me almost a half hour to get the head of my penis to a point where I could start sticking the catheter into it... It was bad enough that I called the Urology people to ask advice... The person that called me basically said that if I can't cath, to head in for the emergency room... Otherwise call first thing in the morning to see if I can get an urgent appointment....

I strongly suspect that a lot of the problem is the BIG blob of tissue that remains at the base of my penis plus the pencil thickness suture / surgery line... The surgeon's report said that he removed both testicles and sent them to pathology, but it looks more like he shoved them up tight in the scrotum and trimmed the rest off.... Definitely not the smooth look so often described....

No going back, but if this problem with not being able to cath (when I was expecting it to become easier) doesn't get better I'm going to be really unhappy....

WheelyFixed

[WheelyFixed]

Adding to the above, I have been taking photos almost daily... I just made the time to download the camera, and sort them by day... It looks like the swelling was much less at first, and has been getting worse, which is consistent w/ the problem I'm having...

(I might be willing to post photos to an appropriate site, and / or send copies to EA members w/ appropriate qualifications, I'm not interested in providing 'wanker thrills'....)

WheelyFixed

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

Not qualified nor medically trained...however I surmise you are having a vast accumulation of fluids from surgery drainage. I'd guess they will have to aspirate the area.

I'm not a doctor but I do watch a lot of General Hospital, and the doctor from the commercial who said "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV" was from General Hospital so I know less than nothing.

I have had surgery in the past where they did need to keep removing a lot of fluids every week for about a month (medical device implant).

Good luck, and if you can't go, GO to the ER...don't want to fuck up the bladder and kidneys!

[WheelyFixed]

Not qualified nor medically trained...however I surmise you are having a vast accumulation of fluids from surgery drainage. I'd guess they will have to aspirate the area.

I'm not a doctor but I do watch a lot of General Hospital, and the doctor from the commercial who said "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV" was from General Hospital so I know less than nothing.

I have had surgery in the past where they did need to keep removing a lot of fluids every week for about a month (medical device implant).

Good luck, and if you can't go, GO to the ER...don't want to fuck up the bladder and kidneys!

This makes sense... At any rate I just failed in my attempt to cath, so I'm packing up to go to the ER

[Paolo]

This is concerning. Please keep us informed.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

Seriously, hope they are able to give you a workable solution even if it is just temporary until they figure out what a permanent solution will be.

[WheelyFixed]

Just got home from the ER... I got jabbed at least SEVEN times trying to get blood samples and then put in an IV for contrast in a PET scan...

They put in a new Foley, and said I should leave it in for at least the next few days, until I'm able to go to a follow-up next week. I did get some more supplies w/ this one, including both leg bags and overnight bags

I haven't reviewed the test results yet but the docs said my urine was fine, and blood was mostly OK except for an elevated white blood cell count - which is why they did the CAT scan. They said there was definitely fluid build up, but they said it was 'normal healing' not any sort of infection, As a result they said there wasn't anything they could do about the swelling, which they agreed was the main problem, other than to wait for healing to happen. Aside from the swelling, they said the incision looked fine and appeared to be healing well.

I'm not happy about being back on the Foley, but things could be worse.

WheelyFixed

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

My thinking was that fluid during healing could be pooling in the area in a more concentrated manner due to your limited mobility.

Primary concern though was that you can get the urine out. Now you can focus on healing.

[WheelyFixed]

My thinking was that fluid during healing could be pooling in the area in a more concentrated manner due to your limited mobility.

Primary concern though was that you can get the urine out. Now you can focus on healing.

I agree about getting to pee. I hate having to use a Foley, as it's a major pain to deal w/ the bag and so on - either the big bag with the hose you have to keep track of, or the leg bag that is strapped to your thigh and doesn't hold much... However if that is what it takes I can put up with it for a while...

I was mentioning your thought to the docs that were treating me, and from what they were saying, it sounds like you would have been right about pooling fluid if there had been any infection, but they said I wasn't showing any signs of that. They said that when you get swelling from normal healing w/o infection, it doesn't make pools that can be drained, but instead is mostly distributed through the tissues and you just have to wait for the body to reabsorb it....

WheelyFixed