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What is a Prostatectomy Like?
It is living hell
You wear a catheter for 7-10 days after surgery,
Then the fun begins.
You are now incontinent, and you must wear diapers, you actually leak pee,
It at times squirts out of you. You have constant urge to go meaning trips to bathroom every hour or less.
You have to deal with constant leaking, ED, potential UTIs.
Embarrassing and
Humiliating absolutely terrible time.
The care team will tell you that the
Incontinence last 9 months or more.
Remember prostrate cancer is slow growing
Surgeons will encourage surgery and your cancer will be gone but your life has changed forever because the incontinence is a daily challenge. Assuming you regain continence then you have to deal with ED.
Research as much as you can before making the decision to have prostatectomy. It is your body and your life afterwards.
But you potentially traded quality for quantity of life.
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That's a valid vent.
But because we're not robots, it's different for everyone.
Some are continent within milliseconds. People like you & I are still leaking months afterwards.
The catheter was no fun - neither is incontinence.
But you know what else is not fun? Being dead.
I've always said that I feel lucky it's prostate cancer.
Why? Because if it was bladder cancer or lung cancer or something, I couldn't just say "Meh... take it out".
But with prostate cancer, we can.
It's still worse than not having cancer at all, but we're better off than some.
In terms of incontinence, ED etc.... it's just part of it. The main thing is getting rid of the cancer.
I know just was well as anyone else here what massive pain it is to leak constantly.
But there's a lot of support & ways to deal with it.
We just have to get through this, one challenge at a time.
The alternative is to do nothing. That option rarely ends well.
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11 ReactionsI'm with you brother.
Cancer has given me the "Life sucks and then you die" attitude.
Absolutely nothing good about it, then the question is.
Do you want to live? Spouse, Partner, Kids, Grandkids, Friends.
Do you want to live?
I am 12 years after diagnosis, on my 3rd recurrence, having SBRT on Friday at Mayo.
Keep fighting!!!!
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9 ReactionsI’m so very sorry to hear of your “living hell” post-op, surveyr. Like jeffmarc I thankfully had a different post-op experience. As has been said often on this site, our paths are so varied - both in symptoms, treatment, and results.
We often don’t get to choose our path but we do choose our response to that path. Keep the faith, friend. You can still impact the resultant path you follow in recovery. Work hard by following the surgeon/doc’s suggestions and then work some more. Don’t give up!
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7 ReactionsUnfortunately, this does happen with some people but it is a minority. I had no real problems after surgery and didn’t require diapers, Didn’t really even need pads after the catheter was removed. Someone else in this forum reported the same thing in the last week.
Results are so mixed. Sorry your situation has been so bad. You may want to consider an artificial urinary sphincter.
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