Greg and Steve,
Thanks for all the kind words.
I feel pretty good today. I’m still in some discomfort, but it’s not as bad as yesterday. They’ll have me walk a little later this evening.
Tomorrow could be interesting. They’re planning on filling up my bladder through the catheter, then they’ll pull the catheter and have me urinate, then measure the output and compare it to what they put in. The interesting part would be the drive home with a bladder that’s been slowly shrinking for the past six months. My surgeon said it takes about a month to really see a big improvement in bladder capacity, and three months until it completely returns to normal.
One interesting thing about this surgery is the lack of dribbling afterward. After a urethroplasty it’s expected for a while to have some dribbling after you go, since urine is still sitting in the bulbar portion of the urethra, and the muscles used to expel everything are still strengthening. With a urethrostomy, however, its a straight shot down from the bladder to the new opening, which means a more complete draining from the beginning. My urethra is now only about two inches long, which is shorter than the stricture.
I’ll post another update tomorrow.
Clayton