Wendel, I'm afraid my WLS catheter experience wasn't quite as easy as the ladies'. Put plainly, it sucked, although it was still nothing to be afraid of.
The anesthesiologist warned me before I went into surgery that my most significant pain and discomfort coming out of surgery would come not from the incisions or the WLS itself, but from (1) the gas they would pump into my abdomen during surgery (true - it was horrendous, especially in my chest) and (2) the catheter, which he said would "feel like a garden hose shoved up inside my penis" (also true).
I'd had a lap appendectomy 9 years ago, with no catheter discomfort, so I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, but it was. It wasn't "
painfully painful", but I
definitely felt it, even with the morphine. I also had an annoying problem, especially in the a.m. the day after surgery, which I will not describe in detail so as not to offend any delicate sensibilities
, but let's just say it's a common male physiological response in the mornings, even though I didn't actually need to urinate since I had the cath. Now,
that sensation was truly unpleasant (and I learned that yelling "No! No! No! Stop it!" at it didn't have any effect), and I was really glad to have the cath removed. The removal was uncomfortable, but the discomfort only lasted an instant - then I felt perfectly fine.
Basically, it's not fun for a man to have a catheter, but it's nothing to be afraid of. It may suck for you too, but you'll get through it just fine, and you may even have an experience more like my appendectomy, and have no trouble at all...
BMI**09/2/2008
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