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The recovery process entailed ice. If you've had a vasectomy at all, just putting ice around the scrotum area.
The primary thing at the beginning, you know, of my recovery was for the first day or two, you know, there was no showering 'cause I couldn't get the incision wet.
I think it was like the first day my friend had to like half carry me into the house because I was just so doped out on the pain meds. 'Cause this was right after the surgery. And then like my legs weren't really wanting to work and it like, it hurt every step I took.
It was just mainly just lying back and relaxing. The pain level was not as excruciating as you may think having your testicle cut open.
I was told to expect that I would be passing a lot of blood. And I did for probably four weeks.
I had probably two or three days of regular bleeding, which worried me. And I called and I said, "Is this normal?" And he said, "Well, yes, because your prostate has to heal. And it's hard to heal an internal organ like that."
When I first went home, it was very dark red, and it got lighter as the weeks went on.
But then gradually it stopped bleeding. And the first thing I noticed was that the urination became so much easier. There was no more, no more pressure.
They said it's very helpful if you walk, get up out of bed and walk. So that first night I went for a little walk. And then the next day I went for longer walks, and during the night I went for longer walks. And walk, walk, walk, walk. And my wife generally accompanied me if she was here. And we got the full tour of that hospital ward.
Well I was up and walking around as soon as I left the hospital. And able to do things with a foley and do everything that I had to do before. I just had to be, had to be careful of where I went, so I had a place to go dump it and change the bag.
I put a big towel in my chair. And you're always going to get some leakage. So get over it.
The six weeks with the catheter are just annoyance. You're saddled; you're strapped to this crazy bag. Things like that. And I guess the one good thing is you don't have to get up at night.
They just converted my catheter bag to a very small catheter that attaches to your leg.
But that's the worst. But once the catheter came out, it was wonderful.
It didn't take me long to regain my continence. There are exercises you do.
Probably three months of all of that and then I was back, life was back to normal.
I finished treatment I think in August. They gave me kind of a rest period from there and then I started to do my follow-up scans to see if I was kind of in remission.
What I really do now is I just, I think it was right afterwards, it was on a monthly basis I would go and see the radiation doctor. Just run him through like how I'm recovering, how I'm feeling.
The oncologist who was like, "Yeah, your lymph nodes have shrunk, it looks a lot better, they're still slightly enlarged but not to the point where it's much of a concern anymore."
Now I'm at a point where it's every... I think they put me at every six months I go in. Same procedures, I tell them how I'm feeling. Stuff like that.
He was like, "From now on we're just going to follow a surveillance plan from there." So, I've got to do blood every two -- or every two months. And then I get scans every six months for the first year. And then they kind of diminish over the next five years and that's kind of where I'm at.
Everything is looking good. I'll probably have to see a urologist every three months. They'll want to look for a possibility of the cancer growing or something like that. It's just a matter of every three months another, another PSA, an interview, and I'm good with that.