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Year Of Firsts: Your Experiences
In bereavement there is always a year of firsts. The first time you experience a holiday without your loved one, for example. In general, you will experience most of those things in the first 12 months.
I see prostatectomy as the same thing, it's the loss of something that you have had all your life.
What is your experience with this? There's going to be the first time I attempt alcohol, the first time I lift something or mow the lawn or clear snow, a first concert - all things that I don't know how I'll easily handle. Might be tight as a drum, but I might not.
My plan currently is to take things very slowly. That first drink, for example, will be small. That first spicy meal, small. The things that can cause problems will ramp up as I gain confidence in my ability to control it.
What were your experiences? This is assuming that you are mostly continent but have occasional leaking as your body gets used to using just that single sphincter, the pelvic floor, to control your bladder. As someone who is very much a prepper, I try to anticipate issues before they happen so I can plan appropriately for them.
I've even gone as far as to ask my close friends and my wife about how they, as women, deal with these issues since we now will have the same control mechanisms as they do. I've learned a lot and much of it I won't really get to put to the test until my catheter comes out (surgery 5 days, catheter out in 13).
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Well, then there’s your rationale - the bulge - and I agree wholeheartedly with your decision for all the reasons you mentioned. I didn’t even have a bulge and my cancer came back!
You’ve made a very well informed decision, so now go with it and NEVER LOOK BACK and never second guess.
BTW, a friend years ago had prostate removal at Johns Hopkins and they saved one nerve bundle. According to him, as far as sex was concerned we was doing just fine. There’s a reason we have anatomical duplicates - eyes, ears, kidneys - so if one fails the other can take over and do the job…too bad we don’t have duplicates of a few more things, right?
Best of luck on your procedure!
Phil
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3 ReactionsMy logical brain knows this, but it really does help for me to read this today. It helps me with the ubiquitous question everyone here seems to ask before or after: did I choose the right treatment, as well as the promising possibility that half my nerve bundle might actually be enough.
In 48 hours from now I'll be going under, the thought of which doesn't scare me, but waking up from it and then a week later when the catheter comes out is giving me more and more anxiety. It's all in Gods and the surgeons hands now, I've done all I can do and worrying won't get me anywhere but wow the end result is a serious mind bender (there's an entirely different word I want to use instead of bender, by the way, ENTIRELY).
My appetite is almost zero right now, on a scale of 1-10 my stress is at 94.7. I'm kind of at the point of "let's get this over with already" but also not.
Here is what I pray: everything I hoped for happens and I can come back here and write the ever-so-hard-to-find success story of my intense worry followed by "well, that was for nothing" and inspire others that are just starting this totally messed up journey (again, I didn't want to use the word messed...) to give them some hope. Too few of those around, far too few.
Thanks Phil, at this very moment, those words helped me.
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5 ReactionsI'm going through the same. Had prostectatomy on 5th November 2024. Had the catheter removed after 6 weeks. Now experiencing urine incontinence for the 1st time in my life and no erection. Just don't know when I may start experiencing normal urine flow and do away with the use of diapers
Six weeks?!?! That was such a long time to have a catheter in. By that time your pelvic floor has lost some of its ability to engage, but with practice it should return. I've heard of some guys that had it for two weeks, but most are 7-10 days (mine will be 7) so I'm sorry you had to endure that discomfort for so long!
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1 ReactionThanks veryvmuch for your feedback. Just had to endure the discomfort of having the catheter for that long in the name of following the Doctor's instructions. At the moment doing some kegel exercises in the hope of getting the Pelvic muscles back to normal. Other than these exercises, is there anything else one can be doing to help with the issue of urine incontinence?