Fourth week after operation

The suprapubic catheter they put in (held in by stitches) before I was discharged from the hospital is a bit different from the others I’ve had. It has two separate parts: the narrow catheter tube itself (clear silicone) and the adapter to connect it to a drainage bag.

Unfortunately the two parts can be separated quite easily and this occasionally happens if the catheter tubing slips through the adhesive catheter holders. On Tuesday morning it pulled off and I didn’t notice until the urine had soaked through my t-shirt. This time I’ve arranged it so that one catheter holder is holding the adapter and the catheter tube has plenty of slack.

I got an appointment for the cystourethrogram for Wednesday the 10th. After that the doctors will be able to decide whether my urethra has healed and isn’t leaking. If everything is OK the suprapubic catheter will come out and I’ll be back to peeing normally.

I also got an appointment with a nurse on Monday the 8th. There was nothing to say what the appointment was for so I contacted the urology department. It turns out that they’d messed up the scheduling and the nurse was going to remove the suprapubic catheter before the x-ray appointment. They fixed it so that I’d just go up to urology straight after the cystourethrogram.

I’d thought the worst of the night-time erection pain was over, but in the early hours of Thursday I woke up with one and was just dozing off again when I felt three sharp pains inside my penis, along with a strange snapping sensation. I’m assuming it was some of the remaining stitches that had partially dissolved and were snapped by the tension. Since that I don’t get any pain with erections, just a sensation of tightness along the urethra.

Things are starting to look more normal, the scar is fading nicely with just one reddish patch. I can still feel inflammation along the whole repaired stretch of urethra but I had the same after the urethrotomy and that seems to take a couple of months to go away.