Chris — It has definitely been emotionally draining. I’ve been going alright lately, still not where I would expect it. I spoke to the doc who told me that they won’t even take a uroflow until at least a month out since its expected for the flow to, as he put it, scatter graph. Things like the stitches and scabbing and probably even swelling will get in the way of the flow while it’s healing.
Week 2:
Decided I’ll try to update every week for the first few weeks then maybe monthly after that. I haven’t found any other running account online of urethroplasty recovery, so I hope this will help those who come after me and are trying to figure out what to expect.
So I got my catheter our at day 10 (math puts that 4 days ago). The first time I went it was slow and sputtery. The second time I went, I had some odd stuff come out along with it such as little red chunks and something kinda gooey. After a few more times going those went away. Only recently, this morning actually, have I been able to start urinating without a delay and had an ok flow (probably around 19 or 20 ml/s).
Stitches are starting to dissolve. Also, the day of/after I had it taken out I had some very sharp pains. They felt almost like the catheter was still inside and I had an erection (neither was the case). The pain would start and stop and for the most part was gone after I woke up. Still not sure what that was all about.
Swelling is continuing to go down. Doc noted that I had swelling and the very solid masses under the incision point was due to how the body reacts to these stitches. Once they’re gone, that hard masses should soften and go away.
Aside from all that, I feel I’m recovering well. At times I completely forget that I had this surgery two weeks ago. I’m walking around fine. Some discomfort in the surgery area, but easily ignored. Erections initially were very uncomfortable even with the catheter out. I’ve had quite a few of them since (still have a nice active libido) and the discomfort is going down. I have not actually been woken up by my erections (I read that others have). Blue balls have been quite painful, and not being sexual is really irritating me, but that was all part of the deal going in.
On the sexual side, my penis is not full length. I think its at about 90% (i didn’t get around to actually measuring it prior to surgery so I’m not 100% sure where it’s at). To be honest, I think I’d be fine if it doesn’t grow back to its full size. I really can’t say how much feeling I have lost in the scrotum/penis. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything with it, and I’m not wanting my girlfriend to do anything with it at the moment, so I guess I’ll have to determine all of that later.
I guess overall I’m pretty happy with where things are. Still nervous about my body healing correctly, but the lack of pain and feeling like I’m almost back to normal otherwise is nice.