Surgery Complete, Now Recovery and Catheter Issues

By JoeMac

Last Updated:

1 min read

I'm on day #2 after surgery. The one side effect I didn't think about was that my bowels weren't moving. I normally have no problem with bowel movements (BMs), but right now I have not been able to go yet and I started taking stool softeners yesterday. The other problem I'm having is with my catheter. It's obviously uncomfortable, which I can deal with, but the three times I've sat down to try to have a BM, I've peed out of my catheter.

Understanding your bladder's response

I'm not sure why, except that when I normally sit down for a bowel movement I normally pee first. I have been doing that for decades, so as soon as I sit down I get the urge to pee and it starts coming out around my catheter. Otherwise, if I'm sitting in a chair or anywhere, it doesn't leak and everything goes out of the catheter.

Has anyone experienced this? It's very strange, and my catheter is due to be removed on Tuesday (as of my writing this). But I'm not sure I can wait until Tuesday for a BM, and I'm sure that when I sit to have one I'm going to leak urine.

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JoeMac Member

Update: catheter has been removed. So far the catheter was the most uncomforable part of post-surgery. I have been experiencing some leakage but nothing too much. I did some pelvic floor PT before surgery and am back doing it again. Hopefully this helps me recover quicker and at some point I wont need any additional protection and can get back to where I was pre-surgery. I have updated my surgery results on other posts and I'll add it here as well. The surgery went great. I am BRCA2+ was in the NepTune trial (6 months) to try to kill the cancer before my surgery. When I was diagnosed with cancer my first scans showed cancer or both the right and left sides of my prostate. Tissue analysis after surgery showed no cancer on the left side and the right side was reduced so the trial did work in reducing the cancer. Lymph nodes showed no cancer and there were no postive margins and honestly I couldnt have wished for better results. As far as the surgery - I was in the hospital overnight. I am 2 week outs now and the incisions have been healing nicely. Since it was robotic surgery, all but 1 of the incesions are small, the larger one was used for removing the prostate. They use glue over disolvable stitiches so there is no need to go back unless I had an issue. Thanks to everyone here for your ideas and support. Its been quite the journey and I am blessed to have friends in high places watching over me 😀, a great medical team, great family and friends, and of course this website as a valuable resource. I will check in when I have my 3 month blood draws and let you know how I am progressing. 
1. Richard Faust Community Admin
 
 Hi <inline-mention username="JoeMac" user-id="9932496"/>. Thanks for the update. One thing you didn't mention was the inability to have a BM, but guessing that this resolved. Anesthesia often causes constipation, so this was not unexpected However, I guess with everything else happening, mentioning this is something that surgical teams often forget to do. Hope the recovery continues to go well. Best, Richard (Team Member)