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Back in October about 10 months after receiving my implant I woke up one morning and began to cycle my implant. It was something I did almost every morning. I would pump it and leave it hard while I took a shower, drank cofffee and went about my morning routine. Sometimes I would keep it inflated for 15 or 20 minutes , if i didn't have anything going on that morning I might leave it for an hour or two. That morning I gave it 2 or 3 pumps amd the bulb went flat. Press deflate and try again. Same thing. I tried multiple times with the same results.

I knew I had a leak somewhere and I hoped it would be an easy fix so on my next set of days off I went to see my urologist. He confirmed it was broken and told me it would need to be replaced. He told me he was going to replace the whole thing, although he might be able to reuse the resivour.

It was just as I feared. I was screwed several different ways. I had recently come out of a long period of unemployement and my savings had been severely depleted. I also had not been working there long enough to be eligible for health insurance as well as not having earned any vacation or sick time yet.

In November I became eligible for health insurance, at the time I thought it worked out well that I became elgibile during the enrollment period. A week or so later I received my cards and a summary of benefits. I look in my summary of benefits and find a statement that says in black bold letters to the effect of " we will not reimburse for a penial implant or the replacement of regardless of the diagnosis."

Time goes goes by and soon it is almost March. I start figuring out when I'm going to have enough time off accrued. I start putting plans togeather. I find out what my cash price for the procedure is going to be. I tentavily schedule my vacation and the surgery for the end of March.
Then I go to the bank and borrow the money. Once I am approved for the loan I finalize my plans.
Surgery is booked for the end of March.

Three days after I got the loan my Supervisior tells me to keep an eye on my email because they are sending us the paperwork to renew our benefits. We didn't do that in November? No, we do it in March. Everyplace I ever worked did it in November. Hell I thought everybody did it in November. Guess what? The new insurance starts April first two days after my surgery..

Now I'm in a quandry. Do I cancel my plans and wait to see if the new insurance wil pay for it or do I say screw it, the guys I work for are too cheap to get good insurance anyway. In the end it didn't matter anyway. Texas banned all elective surgeries anyway,

Finally, The ban ends. I want to do it ASAP but the doctor has people ahead of me that he thinks are more urgent. I reset my vacation and the doctors office runs it through my new insurance and they approve it!!! Looks like my luck is finally changing. Then, last Thursay Governer Abbott reinstates the ban. I don't think I cursed that much in one day, ever.

I got hold of my doctors office and I have to hand it to them. They told me they were working on plan B and Plan C and not to worry we were getting it done. And they did. I had to do it as an outpatient but I got it done and now I'm in my hotel resting comfortablely.

Congratulations! It is heartening to hear a story of bureaucracy the DOESN'T have an unhappy ending.

Congrats on your new implant, did you get implanted with the same brand and length?

Just got back from my post op doctor visit. He removed the catheter. What a relief that was.

He told me the surgery went fine. The tubing had ruptured between the pump and one of the cylinders. Closer to the cylinder than to the pump. He said he had never seen that big a hole in one before unless there was some massive trama involved. The Coloplast rep was there and agreed that It was a defect so I should be seeing some money back from the hospital. He was unable to remove my old reservoir without making another incision so he left it and put a new one on the other side. I did get an extra .5 cm, not much but I will take it.

So far, at least pain wise, this has been much easier than the first. I was a little worried about not spending the night in the hospital but that turned out fine. Orginally, my plan was to going to take Uber to the hospital then have a medical transport company pick me up but at the last minute I had a friend pull through for me. It was nice not to be alone. I had planned to get some food that I could nuke in the hotel room but with Covid 19 the hotel has pulled out all the microwaves and mini fridges so it was nice to have somebody to make food runs.

Right now I am in very little pain. Where my new reservoir is a little tender but so is the rest of the area. I don't think it is anythig that Tylenol or ibuprofen can't handle.

Awesome to hear. Hate the insurance company exclusion. So unfair when they will pay for women to get breast implants for cosmetic reconstruction after breast cancer surgery, but men arent afforded the same benefits (even though a lot of guys also had cancer, just of prostate that caused their E.D.).

OregonStrong wrote:Awesome to hear. Hate the insurance company exclusion. So unfair when they will pay for women to get breast implants for cosmetic reconstruction after breast cancer surgery, but men arent afforded the same benefits (even though a lot of guys also had cancer, just of prostate that caused their E.D.).

I have found that many women friends are not very sympathetic and generally don't think implants should be covered. Men get that it's not just about sexual pleasure.

What a run around. My insurance tried to deny payment, approved the surgery then afterwards I got a bill from the surgeon for $14,000. A phone call got things approved in the end thank goodness.
Your comment about women not being sympathetic to men getting implants is right. They stopped paying for Viagra too. Wonder if the CEO's of major insurance companies are female?

Update: After my post op Dr. visit I was feeling good and I think I pushed myself a little to hard. I woke up the next morning and had some swelling. I thought about staying in the hotel another night but I decided to go home anyway. It is a 3 hour drive for me and by the time I got home the swelling was pretty bad but my pain level was still low. I spent much of the rest of the day iceing it down. I went to bed early and woke up about 3 am. I got up peed, and put an ice pack on. I noticed my swelling looked much better. After about an hour I tried to get some more sleep and went back to bed. I had only been in bed a couple of minutes when I had to chough. I choughed hard three or four times. On the last one It was almost like sombody punched me in the stomach and kicked me in the balls at the same time It also felt like my left nut had gotten sucked up into me. I jumped out of bed and turned the light on. It was pretty obvious that my reservoir was now resting in my crotch. I was in some pain and was a little paniced. I left a message at the Drs. office but they don't open untill 8 so I just decided to drive up betting that they would want to see me. On the way up I called and got an appointment. When he saw me he tried to push it back into place. It was not pleasant. He thinks that he might be able to get it back in place once the swelling goes down but is not very hopeful.

My options are to either just leave it where it is. It will work fine there. He said the pain it was then causing would go away and in the last couple days has gotten much better. The other option is to have surgery to move it. It sounded fairly minor but he would need to make an incision in my abdomen. To do the surgery he wants to wait 2 to 3 months. I still have my appointment in 2 weeks so maybe I'll get lucky.

Holy cow, the muscle contractions from your cough expelled your reservoir. That had to of been a hell of a cough. Sounds like your doctor has given you your options. I hope this goes good for you. Best of luck Weazer.