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Recovery Time Robotic Surgery

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Subject: Recovery Time Robotic Surgery
Date: 10/28/2007

Can anyone say how long it took for recovery for the robotic surgery?

 

Subject: RE: Recovery Time Robotic Surgery
Date: 10/28/2007
I had my surgery 10/25/2007.  I am 50, in excellent health. The first 5 daysI had excruciating pain where they made the incision for the drain bulb. After five days it went away. After two weeks I had no pain and could move without problem. I still have incontinence, leak alot when doing work, lifting, getting up from sitting, laughing, etc.  No leaks sitting or sleeping. ED is not an issue with me,,can get semi hard to hard efections without drugs,  rock solid with viagra. 
Subject: RE: Recovery Time Robotic Surgery
Date: 11/04/2007

Depends on what "recovery" means to you.

  I'm 51 and in good health. I had my RLP in August, done by a very experienced surgeon who takes a lot of pride in sparing nerves, as was done in my case. I awoke from anesthesia with very little pain, and was up and dancing around the halls of the ward that evening. Discharged (with Foley) the following day. Never took a pain pill, never needed to. 

  The catheter came out a week later, and I've had very good continence -- only some small squirts when the bladder is full and I sneeze or something similar. Call it 9.5 out of 10.

  I had problems with itching and blistering where various tapes covered the surgical wounds, but they closed well, and are now fully healed. Two of the incision sites remain a purplish-maroon color ten weeks post-RP, so I think further epidermal healing is likely.

  Sexually, I had no erectile function at all for several weeks despite Viagra and Cialis. I'm now taking Cialis 5 mg regularly 5x/week, and my erections are infrequent and fleeting, and still only about 2 out of 10 firmness -- not enough to do anything with. I'll be trying injectables soon if there's no improvement by 3 months post-RP. Orgasms are achievable, but somewhat painful and (of course) without ejaculate.

  Psychologically/emotionally, I'm not doing all that well. The ED was not unexpected, but is still depressing and sometimes angering. However, the permanent cessation of ejaculation, and the foreclosure on future fatherhood, turned out to be much bigger issues than I had bargained for. For me, this permanent diminution of myself feels as much a wound to my self-esteem and identity as, say, the loss of one's front teeth, or an obvious permanent facial scar. Big deal for me, maybe not for most guys.

  Unrelated to the other issues, I'm also anxious and sometimes prone to self-pity because I'm one of the unlucky 5% with biochemical failure immediately following surgery AND a scary new Gleason score (pre-RP I was a cT2aN0 GS4+3; post-RP, I'm a pT3aN0 GS5+4). But my postsurgical story is, of course, very atypical, and it's not unlikely that my suboptimal emotional adjustment to the sexual-identity issues has been magnified by anxiety over my poor overall prognosis.

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