Two-stage urethroplasty: stage 2, day 14 after surgery – catheter removal

About four hours driving today for a 15 minute hospital appointment but neither I nor the surgeons who did the urethroplasty really trust my local urology department.

The surgeon seemed very happy with the appearance of the wound. I agree, they did some really neat suturing. There’s one suture at the foreskin end that’s sticking out a bit and he said I could remove that myself.

He pulled out the catheter without any trouble and it wasn’t really any more uncomfortable than usual. I had an early lunch and had a pee before getting back in the car, my first normal pee since October 2015! The flow seemed good and strong and it wasn’t too painful.

Later in the day it was getting a bit more painful and there was a hint of blood but I’m guessing that’s just irritation of the wound on the inside.

The only instructions I got were no sex or cycling for another two weeks and to generally avoid strenuous exercise that might affect that area. Once I get to four weeks after surgery I can apparently do whatever I want.

I’ll have an appointment at my local hospital in about a month for a urine flow measurement. The surgeon was very emphatic that they shouldn’t do anything else and I should contact him with any questions rather than the local urology department.

Two-stage urethroplasty: stage 2, day 4 after surgery

We walked into town for lunch today and the only problem I had was the usual discomfort from the urethral catheter.

I’d had a shower earlier in the morning and my husband changed the dressing for me afterwards. That meant that I got to see how the wound looks and get some pictures.

It’s looking surprisingly good, considering what my penis has been through over the last few years. Not very much bruising and really neat suturing, you can hardly see the stitches. At the foreskin end you can see that the wound veers off to one side; I think that’s where the surgeon took a little bit of skin to repair the fibrotic area from the temporary urethral opening that was there.

Two-stage urethroplasty: stage 2, surgery description

The surgeon’s narrative of the surgery has shown up in my online records (translated from Swedish):

Patient under general anaesthetic, flat position. Surgery area washed and dried sterile. Inspected the plate [the grafted area], which looks good, distally somewhat narrowed so we decided to include some skin. At the join between the distal plate and his urethra it’s also slightly fibrotic. Incision with scalpel along the long side of the transplant down to the corpora. Then incision across circa four millimeters distally from the join between the distal edge of the transplant and his own urethra. Cut through the fibrotic area and could excise the fibrosis with a little skin. Then incision across proximally. Stitched the urethra with 5/0 BioSyn running suture. Joined together well over a 12 Ch catheter. Mobilised subcutaneous tissue to cover the row of sutures. No tension in tissue. No twisting. Stitched the skin in two layers, first two individual subcutaneous stitches, finished with intracutaneous MonoCryl running suture. Applied dressing, penis upwards and light dressing on it.

Two-stage urethroplasty: stage 2, 1 day after surgery

It took me a long time to get to sleep, I think I eventually dozed off around midnight. Then I was woken up by pain from an erection around 2 am. I’d managed to get the nurse to leave one dose of oxycodone by my bed so I could take it immediately and it lasted for the rest of the night.

As usual I got woken up at 6 am to have my temperature taken and then didn’t get breakfast until after 8 am. At rounds they told me that I’d be getting discharged later today. I had to contact my husband so that he could arrange coming to collect me.

The rest of the day was mostly spent hanging around the dayroom. They have surprisingly hard and uncomfortable chairs for a ward where patients often have tender nether regions.

I finally got to meet the surgeon after lunch. He seemed happy with how the surgery had gone. I’m to go back in a couple of weeks to have the catheter removed.

The two-hour drive home was uneventful but almost as soon as I got in the door I had a really strong bladder spasm. Then a little bit later I had one that was so strong it managed to squeeze some urine out around the catheter. I’m hoping the effect of the tolterodine is still building up. I’m avoiding caffeine for a bit anyway, since that can apparently make bladder spasms worse.

Two-stage urethroplasty: stage 2, surgery day

I took the train through yesterday for my admission appointment at the hospital. They’d told me I’d be admitted to the ward but it turns out there wasn’t a bed available so they booked me into a hotel in town. That worked out well since I’m sure I slept much better than I would have in the hospital.

At 06:45 this morning the taxi picked me up and it was the now-familiar routine of preparation then being wheeled down to the operating theatre.

This time I didn’t get left in recovery as long, so I was at the ward in time for lunch. I’d made a point of asking the recovery staff to ask them to keep some for me. For some reason I never feel ill after general anaesthetic but I’m usually ravenous after the fast.

I wasn’t in so much pain this time, I just have to call the nurse to ask for more pain relief when I start to be able to feel the stabbing pains through the ache in my scrotum. I think the stabbing pain might be as things shift about down there, it’s one of those body parts that’s seldom still for long.

Lunch was a stew made with doner kebab meat, not something I’d ever had before, it was OK. The crêpes with fresh fruit during the afternoon were actually quite nice though. Dinner was allegedly moussaka but I couldn’t find any aubergine and very little meat.

No sign of a doctor all day. I’d been hoping to ask why I only had a urethral catheter, when I was expecting to have a supra-pubic as well. I’ll have to wait and ask in the morning.

One problem with not seeing a doctor was that I couldn’t discuss pain relief and when I asked one of the nurses she insisted it was too late to make any changes to what had been ordered for me. Of course that meant that they hadn’t given me any slow-release painkillers, apparently being awoken unnecessarily by intense pain during the night isn’t something they care about. I did manage to get Tolterodine to deal with the bladder spasms without the usual arguments though.

My husband drove through after work to keep me company for a while and help me argue with the nurse. Getting adequate long-lasting pain relief for the nights is another point I’ll have to bring up during rounds tomorrow.

So now I’m settling down for the night, hoping my room mate won’t be too noisy.