| Incontinence . . a continuation
I'm a fairly new member, have read most of the postings on (and posted just a few times on) the "Incontinence bad 3 weeks after surgery" thread. That thread has become so long I thought perhaps a new continuation thread might be in order. Hope that is not inapprorpiate . . .
First some background: My recovery from da Vinci surgery (performed May 4th) was perhaps a bit atypical. The surgery itself I was told went just fine, envolved the removal of some 13 lymph nodes in addition to the usual and took 5 hours. My drain was not removed for about 10 days because of urine contamination of the draining fluid. My catheter was not removed until 4 weeks following surgery (due to an unexpected bulge in my bladder) and at present I am am 3 days in to antibiotics for a urinary infection. Until the drain was removed, I had a lot of abdominal discomfort, enough to mask discomfort in the urethra & rectum. Once the drain was remove, much of the abdominal pain subsided and utheral & rectal pain was front and center. Since the catheter was removed, the urethral and rectal pain has lessoned but is still noticeable.
Prior to my surgery I can remember thinking that the surgery would be easy, that the real work would start after the surgery was over. Having now watched the ~2 hour internet video of a da Vinci surgery (compliments of the videoed surgery on one of the posters), and observed all the tissue dissruption, I can well immagine my symptoms and those of varing degrees of others. Clearly my doctor did not allude to any of this, and I guess I am glad he did not!
So I am on my third day of no catheter, and so far my incontenence has been fairly minimal, perhaps 1 pad a day (I have been using Depends underwear, probably overkill, but I find them fairly comfortable & very reassuring). I have noted that most of the time when I am not lying down, I am able to keep my spincter muscles semi-tensed. (For what it's worth I did Kegels for 3 months prior to surgery and got to the point where I could hold one for several minutes). I am aware that quite a number of folks are fairly continent for a few days (or even weeks) and then encounter more incontinence difficulties thereafter. We shall see.
Hope starting this new thread as a continuation effort on another thread about incontnence is not inapproriate.
Leo -
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