What Should I Expect From Prostate Cancer Surgery?
I will be gong into Laparoscopy surgery on Sept 30th for prostate cancer stage 2 with a T2 M0 N0 Gleason 7 status. I have a lot of concerns and stressful anxiety about the surgery and post-recovery.
Will I be a leaky faucet?
Spoke with the Dr. performing the surgery. His three objectives are to first remove the cancer, protect the bladder urinal areas, and care taken working on the nerves. It will be a three-hour surgery and I am a bit nervous.
Post-recovery side effects
I have never had a major surgery and this scares me a bit. So has anyone gone through this surgery and what is the post-recovery. Will there be any side affects or lasting damage to my nerves? Will I be fully recovered or have disabilities after? Will everything be functional or am I handicap? Will I be one hundred percent? How long is the recovery? Weeks, months? Lots of unknowns I am not aware of or is the surgeon not disclosing anything I should know about? Thank you for your time.
Stressed and concerned
Has anyone gone through a three-hour surgery? What is the recovery time? Will I be fully functional or a leaky faucet? Is there any side effects or disabilities after recovery? Still in stress and concerned. Thank you for your support.
Hi gabester144. Your concerns and questions are certainly understandable - preparing for surgery and the recover can be daunting. Concerning the recovery, I want to share with you this "Survivor's Guide to Surgery" page put together by our editorial team: https://prostatecancer.net/living/survivor-guide-surgery/. It has a lot of links to our resources/articles on all aspects of recover, from the various physical concerns to the emotional and mental. In addition, please know that a lot of guys here have been there. Hopefully some with check in with there experiences. In addition, if you are on Facebook. You may want to check out our community there at https://www.facebook.com/prostatecancerdotnet. Wishing you the best and please feel free to keep us posted on how you are doing. Richard (ProstateCancer.net Team)
Gabester144,
May 8 2020 I underwent a prostatectomy for stage 2 prostate cancer. My PSA was 10.2 and Gleason score was 9. I was on Lupron shots and Abiraterone for 8 months before the surgery. I was like you I had never had surgery, so I had many of the same concerns. My surgery lasted 7 hours. Because of the Gleason score I was unable to have complete nerve sparing. They removed nerves and tissues from the right side of my prostate, spareing the left..
I woke from recovery my left arm was completely numb and I was unable to use it. I panicked thinking that I had a stroke. It was explained that it was because of the position I was kept in for 7 hours. Would have been good to know this was a possibility before I found out on my own. I spent two nights in the hospital post-op and was very well taken care of. When you discharge you will have a Foley catheter. I joked afterwards that Foley catheter is just a fancy name for a water hose. This was the worst part of recovery. I had it for ten days. They are going to give you a prescription for an anti spasm med for bladder spasms. Take them! I left the hospital without the prescription, on the four hour drive home I started having spasms and leaking around the catheter. Ended up in a small town ER having the catheter flushed and getting the meds. Make sure you are well trained and comfortable flushing the catheter. You will likely have to do it. After the catheter was removed I was sent home with a bag of depends. The first few days was wet and every day got better. I now have no incontinence issues. Do yourself a favor and find a physical therapist who specializes in bladder control. The lady I went to was awesome. It took two visits to get my bladder issues under control. My recovery has gone very well. I am back doing almost everything I want after five months. I can spend all day on a motorcycle seat with no issues. The one thing that has not gone as well is the ED. I am still working on this. Because of the hormone treatment I haven't started making testosterone so I have very little to no sex drive. I have been told the side effects from the medication could last a year.
You are doing the right thing by joining this group. I have received so much support from the group.
