I thought I ought to break this down into the two recoveries because, curious as it may be, both recoveries were very different albeit that both operations were quite similar.
Operation 1 (or Scar Wars 1) we ended with me coming home and having a bit of a cry at getting home. I can't tell you whether that was relief, pent up fear of what had happened to me or what might have been - who knows - one of those things. I think that it was because of how fast things had happened. I arrived home less than a week after I had been diagnosed and less then four weeks since I had the first symptoms.
The main thing was that I was quite sore and a bit bloody still where the catheter had come out. Whenever urinating it was stinging and a strange sensation. Additionally you leak and that was quite a shock still. things start getting better straight away though. Going home makes you feel a lot better of course. The leaking and the blood go away after a few days. You have quite a bit of blood in your urine and a few clots or perhaps bits of tumour (not sure about that though) and over the next few days, the blood gets less and so do the little bits too.
I suggest that you put some old sheets under yourself at night. This stops leaks getting onto the bed. I wore old clothes and also loose clothes. I found that I was able to wear track suit (Jogger) bottoms and loose shirts and tee-shirts also I could wear loose swimming trunks as there was little pressure around my middle and hence my bladder. You must not bend or pick up heavy weights and you can't exactly run about. No driving the car for a while etc. So it should not come as a surprise that if you stretch, twist or try to move too quickly you will regret it so DON'T DO IT! As soon as you do something like this you start the bleeding off again and you are back to square 1 in a way and have to take it easy again. A stretching yawn did it for me and I had to take it easy again for a day!
Drink lots of water and fruit juice and also eat plenty of fruit - you do not need to be straining going to the loo so prunes and grapes will help a lot. The early days are the worst as you feel everything when you go the loo, try to move around the house etc. Sitting is about all you can do and daytime TV is so dire, make sure you have some DVDs and videos to watch. Books are OK if you feel up to it and I was but I tended to do most of my reading at night in bed. My sleep pattern wasn't great and I must have lost lots of sleep in the 4 weeks leading up to the Operation. I would fall asleep in the chair but could I get to sleep at night! Damn, I could fall asleep about 4 in the morning and then go through to midday but going to bed at the normal time just didn't work so I was able to read until I felt tired.
It is unlike anything else recovering from an internal operation as you can't see anything wrong with you, there are no scars, no plaster cast no stitches and you can easily forget that you have a scar or series of scars on the inside of your bladder. That is like a balloon and so it moves about and doesn't (I imagine) help the healing process especially as most of the time the wound is probably covered in urine too.
To make matters worse (and this happened both times) I started to feel very itchy on my back and my legs and after a couple of days went to the Doctor. You may remember I spent a lot of time on some of the hottest days of the year lying on beds and sitting on chairs at the Hospital. I can only attribute it to the plastic covering of the bed/chairs or the linen but the Doctor told me that I had a particularly nasty case of a type of eczema and he prescribed some cream to treat this. Thank goodness that my wife was able to put this on for me - how do single people manage. The whole of my back and the back of my legs were covered, later it moved to my front and to my upper arms. It was quite uncomfortable as I had to lie on my front whilst the cream was applied - that made me jump every time it was put on and I was lying on my stomach area so putting a little pressure on my bladder. Anyway, it is one to watch out for and I knew the second time so was able to do something about it quicker.
Overall the recovery took quite a long time, I was pretty much sedentary and could hardly do anything for long. The effort to write an e-mail was ridiculous and concentration was very poor. Someone told me that it was the General Anaesthetic that did that and it would take a while to go. I can still hardly concentrate now but at least I can work for 40 minutes or so and then need to take a break. Before it could take me 40 minutes to write a few sentences.
I managed to read all of the Harry Potter Books in the three or four weeks after the operation. Probably the silliest thing I did was to have the X-Ray so near to coming out of Hospital and I think that made me feel worse and may have knocked me back a bit too.
I also think that I hadn't realised how serious the operation was - these days you are in and out in a few days but perhaps I was trying too hard to be up and get back to work etc. I hadn't realised just how I would feel. Take your time, it is after all a tumour they have removed from you and it needs to heal properly.
I think this will do for now there are other bits to say but I'll try and cover them in another blog.
