One week out from RALP... what am I missing in preparation?

Vitamin A and D ointment for tip of penis during catheter. Doing kegels ?
https://m.youtube.com/watch

How seriously you’re in life is going to change cannot be overstated. From what I can tell, From my past experience. It’s going to take you about two years to get back to normal, maybe 2 1/2 years. The incontinent is going to be a severe annoyance but, from my experience, will decrease with time. Mine still has not completely gone away after three years. Make sure you and your spouse talk about the post Surgery # changes as well as recovery time together. You both need to be 100% on board. This is a really good group of folks on this site. They have really helped me a lot. Good luck with your surgery.

Yes to what tattoodice said. Start the kegels now. A&D ointment was essential.

RARP in 2015 here. Recovery is a process that proceeds at its own pace, often more slowly than we would like. Just let your body heal without pushing it. For me the catheter was not pleasant, but I’ve experienced much worse (e.g., recovery from knee replacement surgery). I was anxious about the catheter removal, but it was barely a pinch and over before I knew it happened. By the second week of recovery, I was out of the house for short walks, and eventually was going grocery shopping with my wife while wearing the catheter. I hade urinary continence issues for quite some time and never got better than one or two pads per day. Finally, in 2023 my urologist performed a urethral sling surgery (outpatient) and my continence was 100% restored—no more pads, even after having radiation therapy last year for a local recurrence. Best wishes for a successful procedure and recovery, Mel

Stock up on some Gatoraide and hydration liquids and get a lot of ice. Right after my RARP Ice water felt better on my stomach. You will also want to get some higher fiber foods, so that you won't be straining. Also stock up on some foods that you can easily heat up like soup. I had a slight change in my taste right after surgery and everything tasted different. That took a few days to resolve. You might want to get some Protein drinks like Ensure etc. I lost about 5 pounds after surgery.

Some people are incontinent and some people are not. Good that you are prepared, but maybe you will be one of the lucky ones. Look for ointment with lidocaine, didn't need to use it much but the few times I did it was great for helping with discomfort. I ditched the pain meds from the surgeon and took Advil once per day, it was all I needed. Used a grabber (tool for picking things up off the floor) for a couple of weeks. Had several pairs of scrub bottoms and lounge ware that I rotated through, Sketchers slip-in shoes came in handy. I stocked up on comfort foods, diet be damned, whatever works for you (for me it was cheese, crackers, lunchmeat, applesauce, soups, herbal tea) anything that I could snack on throughout the day. The surgery was nothing really, not much pain at all, very glad to get rid of catheter.

At three months I was undetectable, going for my 6-month PSA right this minute.

Hoping this helps some, best wishes!

Sounds like you're pretty well prepared. Since you won't be able to lift more than 10 'lbs for at least 6 weeks, if there's any physically challenging chores around the house, you might want to do them now. For example, I topped off the water softener salt so I didn't have to worry about that heavy lifting chore for several months. Best wishes.

Everyone is giving good advice, so I won’t add to that, but since you mentioned being worried about the catheter a little, I’ll tell you that, except for a strapping issue when I left the cancer center, the catheter was a big bunch of nothing for me. I was concerned as well and had no need to be.

Part of that may be because I’d decided I wasn’t leaving the house until it came out eight days later, so I never had to mess with switching out from the big bag to the leg bag and back again. I just stayed on the big bag the whole time.

I didn’t need a bucket to carry it around it, I found various placed to hook it whenever I needed to, always keeping it about knee level. It wasn’t an issue at all.

Having it removed was also a nonevent. No discomfort whatsoever. If I hadn’t been watching her, I wouldn’t even had known she’d removed it. No sensation whatsoever.

Good luck with your surgery, and I hope you’re back on your feet soon!

thig350

Good luck!

Wishing you the best of luck with surgery recovery and especially with complete cancer eradication 🍀 : ))).

My husband was almost 70 last year when he had surgery and he had very fast and complete recovery. You can read day by day events here if you wish - just skip the intro and go to "blog" part of the post.
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/surf-is-up/
He had no issues with catheter at all and perhaps you will have none either. Make sure that cath. holder which is fixed to your upper leg is placed in a good position so that it does neither pull nor push on your tube and all will be well. 👍

We found that having a sturdy vacuum hook stuck on shower tiles was useful for holding urine bag during showering and we also had some spare bags so that he did not need to reuse the same one if he ever wanted to change bags.

Disposable wet cleaning wipes are very useful for cleaning penis tip ( you have to do it couple of times a day), as well as wet baby wipes for cleaning "behind" after bowel movements. Have some alcohol wipes handy too for cleaning incision sites after shower (GENTLY) and keep those wounds dry and clean at all times. It will make them heal very fast. I bought my husband pure cotton tight fitting undershirts that he wore 24/7 to protect incisions from other clothing and pants etc., and those were changed twice a day to keep the area super clean.

As others said, having shoes that do not need tying is a huge help and perhaps water proof pad for your bed would be useful to have also. My husband never leaked while he had catheter but I know that some members here did.

Food - I would strongly suggest healthy diet with lots of cooked vegetables, fish, fruits and herbal teas since it will keep your guts working well and your recovery extra fast.

Once again - best of luck with it all 🙂🍀 !!!

I forgot something..... So I'll add this. I'm hairy, and they shaved my belly etc. but I didn't trim my bush, some of my public hair got tangled in the Cath and it was irritating. So get the trimmer and tame that bush......