My Journal

[merrix]

The sclero did however kick my butt and made me talk openly to my wife. Even to get her to tell me straight to my face how a 'normal' erection works. Based on the handful of experiences she had before meeting me. This, coupled with getting a taste after the sclero how good it could/should be, made me take the decision to go for the implant.

Would you mind sharing with us what how your wife described how a ''normal'' erection usually works? Since I suffered from ED all my life, I have no clue. I don't think porn is a good reference either...

By this time, I assume your operation is over... I pray God it went well!

Sure. I did, as well known now, also have ED forever.
Was kind of hoping that my problems would not be huge. Hard to say when you've never seen a normal erection in action.
My wife, who has always refused to 'compare me to anyone else', just said that sure it is a problem when it goes soft but it's ok. We can live wih it and it works ok most of the time.
I bought that.

After sclero and the tremendous difference in hardness I forced her to say what that improvement really meant. Was i going from crap to bad, bad to minor issue, bad to normal... Or what?

She honestly said that sex (as in intercourse) wasn't that good before sclero. Or physically pleasurable for her. Simply too soft. Even at its hardest.
After sclero however, she claims, and I believe her, that my erection was as hard as anything she had experienced. Top of her list. And I could definitely notice a clear difference in how pleasurable she experienced intercourse.
Problem though of course is durability.
So, asking the crunch question - how often did it happen with her 5 previous lovers that there were any issues, as in not getting hard or going soft?
Answer: Never. Not once. They just got hard and stayed hard. That was all before she turned 25, so the guys were all young as well. But still. It kind of made me realize the severity of my problems to the bone.

Hence implant. I am jost not interested in having the hassle, embaressment, planning needed, lack of spontaneousity of pills snd still not getting a normal function. Being on pills and still be impotent when compared to 'normal', just is not what I want.
Hence implant.

That is also a hassle, and it's not natural or normal.
But at least, the reward for that is a dick that works just as well as any normal dick when it comes to erection quality.
For me, That beats the crap out of pills.
Or rather, I hope it will. Still yet to see the implant in action of course.

[merrix]

Done.
The clinic where Eid does the surgery is in a nice location on upper east Manhattan between Park and Madison Avenue.
Clinic is nice, I felt well taken care of from entering the place till leaving.

The anaesthetic doc was very likeable. Eid prefers spinal anaesthesia and I asked if I'd be aware of what goes on during surgery. He said no. He'd give me sedatives as well to make me unaware of everything.
Next I remember is him talking to me post-op.
He said I had moved over myself from the transportation bed to the chair where I got the spinal injection. He said I talked a lot to Eid, asking a lot of questions. I don't remember any of that...
Some pain when I woke up, but nothing serious. Of course I was still sedated by the injction and the IV stuff.
The filled me up with more IV pain killers after I woke up.

I talked to Eid afrerwards briefly as he had other patients waiting.
He said I was bleeding more than normal. Don't know why. He suspected because of the sclero, but that sounds really weird to me.
He also said he first put in 2*22 cm cylinders as planned, but felt there was room for more so he took them out and I ended up with 2*24 cm Titan.
He said there was a lot of scar tissue on the right side (outside of the curve). Don't know if I got the narrow cylinder version (because of the scar tissue) or the normal version. Forgot to ask.
He also said most likely my curve will be less than before and hence he went for two cylinders of same size.
I am happy to hear that and hope he's right. If not, then the curvature will make the outer curve cylinder not go all the way front and the inside curve cylinder go too far front and potentially cause pain.
Again, I just hope he got it right. I chose a top guy so chances are good I guess he got it right.
I also think (memory blurred from anesthisia) I asked him about what he thinks the length will be. His pre-op guess was 16 cm with 22 cm cylinders. Now with 24 cm, will it be longer?
As I remember he said probably not. Main reason he needed longer cylinders was to get them deeper inside my body. But there is a chance it may get a little longer than 16.
To be honest, an improved length of 16.5 instead of 16 comes way down my wishlist now.
No infection, perfect pump and reservoir placement, right cylinder size as in no tip pain or no floppy head are all issues which dwarf the 0.5 cm potential extra length.
Furthermore he said that I am likely to experience above average pain at first.
Reason being my excessive bleeding and his agressive sizing.

It's now 9:30 pm, about 6 hours after surgery completion.
I have not taken any pain killers since the IV I got around 4pm in the awakening room.
Pain is there but not too bad when lying on my back in bed. Using ice more or less all the time.
I also think pain tends to be overestimated when it's down there. Knee, shoulder, foot whatever and this pain level wouldn't be an issue. But pain in the dick/scrotum is just psychologically worse.

Regarding the catheter, I am glad I have it. Wouldn't want to be without it. I don't even feel that I have it. And most importantly, I dont need to go to the bathroom every time I need to pee. I can just stay in bed and go to empty the container bag when it's full.
I was worried about removing it myself. But I have made an appointment with Eid's office to have them remove it. It's 200m from the hotel, so I'll hopefully be able to make the walk when time is due.

All in all, too early to say anything about the final result. But so far I think it's ok.

[alibaba]

Thanks for the update. It is always good to hear that things are going well. Overall I think they are for you. Take it easy. Cheers. d

[Epsilon]

Great to get your early report as I've been wondering how it has gone for you on this big day. I'm just three weeks post myself so I can't really say with certainty how it is working out in my own case but like you, must believe in the skill and talents of the surgical team.

That last 200 yard walk should be without difficulty and things only get better incrementally each day from here on. Again, congrats. Now just relax and be glad it's all behind you. The best is yet to come.

Epsilon

[merrix]

Thanks guys

[C_lab34]

Thank you for the detailed report. I will be following closely, and hope that your recovery is smooth. I'm not far behind you.

[merrix]

Rough night.

Catheter leakage. Urinated 'the normal way' i.e bypassing the catheter tube.
Ended up with an absolute soaking wet bandage and jock strap.
Only thing I could do was call Eid at 3.15 am.
He picked up after a few calls. Said that's called bladder spasms.
He had surgery scheduled at 7:30 am and said he'd drop by around 6 am at my hotel to replace bandage and decide whether catheter needed to be removed. Also told me to take the wet stuff off and just use a towel and regular underwear for 2.5 hours till he came.
So I did. Got to see the package and Ithought it looked ok. Less swollen, bruised and blooded than I expected. It looked worse after sclero therapy.

Eid arrived. He looke at it and thought I was very swollen, but that was expected. Again he told me I had been bleeding like crazy during surgery. He again said he thought the bleeding and the unusual swelling was because of the sclero. Veins closed which prevented blood from draining the normal way. He said especially the veins to the glans seemed to be closed.
He said this will give me a very full glans in the future with the implant. Long explanation why, which I didn't 100% follow, but something like that the strong erection from the implant will trap blood in the head. Blood that normally should leak out but now can't. He even said my head might be 'too full and hard'. Whatever that means. Good thing though would be that a fully engorged head reduces risk for pain from the cylinder tips.

He also said my swelling was due to the long surgery time. He said he started with 2*22 cm. Then tried 2*22+1.5 cm RTE on one side, due to curvature and scar tissue. Still too short and he wasn't satisfied. He diluted more scar tissue and finally settled for Titan XL 24 cm on both sides. Said it looked nice with a perfect angled erection pointing to the sky. Some curvature left, but less than pre-op.

However, surgery took long time and he replaced one complete implant including pump and also inserted and removed an RTE. This is in general not good. Ideally he wants to just insert implant, close incision and be done. Any extra procedure is bad for healing time and infection risk.

However, that's just the way it is. Having a curvature, which Eid by the way thinks is a mild PD, will often cause complications.
Just crossing fingers.

[scooter65]

Merrix
That does sound like a tough night but that is behind you. The next several days will have their challenges as well but with each day that passes you are that much closer to feeling normal....ok a "bionic" kind of normal. Hang in there and keep us in the loop, we are all pulling for you.

Scooter

[merrix]

40 hours post op.
Went to Eid's office to see him today. Took a walk 300m from the hotel.
No actual reason to see him, just wanted him to check on me.
3 areas of pain.
Penis. Actually this is not even pain. Just a weird feeling that something's in there. Which it is, so get used to it!
Scrotum. Tender where the pump is. Pain, but not bad. Would not require pain killers as long as I don't move around too much.
Groin. This is where it hurts. Quite badly.

Eid was surprised. Thought I would have a lot of pain in the penis from all the in and out of cylinders, extensive diluting etc. Scrotum pain was expected. Again, I am more swollen than normal from all the bleeding and long time surgery.
Groin pain was making me a bit worried. Understood of course it was from the reservoir. I thought though it'd be sitting higher up in the abdomen. Was even a bit worried that it had moved and 'fallen' down lower than originally placed. Eid however had no worries. He said the reason of the pain is that I am lean and muscular. Means he needed to do more damage than normal to place the reservoir. Normally he just pushes it in place without much or any tissue breakage. With me he had to take a pair of scissors and punch a hole in the muscle to get the reservoir in place. Pain is from the punched muscle. Will hurt for several days but nothing to worry about.

Feeling a lot better after this. A sleepless night on morphine alone in a hotel room on the other side of the planet can grow all sorts of thoughts and worries.

He still warns me though that my recovery time will be longer than normal for someone my age and fitness level. Because of the bleeding, the swapping of cylinders, extensive diluting and groin muscle damage.

No problem. I don't give much of a shit about anything than the end result. If that's good, then I am prepared to take whatever it takes. And then some. After all, it's only been 40 hours since I woke up after surgery. I should get a reality check on the recovery time expectations I guess.

[alibaba]

I too wondered about the reservoir. I am lean and though not muscular bordering on what I would say is muscular. I'll put it this way, when I look at myself in the mirror, I say to myself damn fine for 58 years old. Dr Milam said he would place the reservoir higher ( as did Eid) due to my 4 hernia repairs and DaVinci prostatectomy ( which I learned like laproscopic, they do not repair anything they damage in the wake, They do repair everything if you have open surgery). He poked at a muscle and said " There is some very good muscle to put it in right here". I wondered if it would feel like a charley horse for a a while till the muscle got stretched to accomodate or if they would just cut a slot in it to heal around. Glad you are doing well. Stay reclined. Fluid build up can be worse when you spend too much time upright. A few days down time and things will be sealing themselves off well and speed your recover. Take care. d