Newly Implanted - David Ralph (NHS) - Aug 26th

[Seeking]

It finally happened. Huge thanks to everyone on here who gave me the courage to do this, I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

After 16 years of ED and attempted treatments such as sclerotherapy in Austria, pelvic floor biofeedback, kegels, stretching and ingestion of enough PDE5 pills to give an elephant a priapism, I got a call on 25th August at 4pm saying someone had cancelled a surgery slot for the next day and did I want to get implanted in 16 hours time using their slot?

I had been on the waiting list for about a year already, so my date with destiny had arrived - I had 45 minutes to do a handover at work then I went straight home to pack my bags.

POD0
- Penoscrotal incision. Coloplast Titan - 22cm (no RTE). On awakening my penis was bandaged at full inflation and was stood at attention all night and the following morning. Lots of morphine which, though excellent in the short-term, would eventually lead to the worst constipation of my life.

POD1
- Unwrapping, deflation, catheter and drain taken out, and once I could provide 3 x bladder scans showing I'd properly emptied my bladder, it was home time, with 3 days worth of antibiotics and some dihydrocodeine.
- Upon being unwrapped, I was half ecstatic and half terrified - I now have a 5 inch flaccid, but the definition of 'flaccid' has to be updated now (basically a constant semi). I imagine how great this is going to be with my girlfriend, and how horrible this is going to be for the general public - but it's many weeks until we cross those bridges and I shelve those thoughts until later.
- I'm not able to bend my penis back onto my stomach, and the compressive briefs I bought on the way to the hospital just crush, don't support, my scrotum, so they're shelved for now. I try to search for underwear but it's overwhelming so I just opt for very loose boxers, which are probably causing the issues described below.

POD 2 - 3
- Deceptively little pain, just tenderness. I naively think I might have dodged the bullet - but read on, folks.
- As mentioned, no supporting underwear in use yet - the ones I bought don't support the scrotum like they were supposed to, they just push my incredibly tender penis back into my sack, so it's a disaster on that front and I improvise as best I can.
- One interesting biological detail: if I get aroused (even just by thinking) my penis does sensitise and I feel a good tingle. This is unprecedented and I didn't have this pre-op.

POD 4 - 7 (7 = today)
- Here comes the pain. Significant soreness in both the penis, sack and at the dog ears junction at the base of the penis.
- If sitting down at the perfect angle I can get the pain down to 1/10, but after a few minutes of walking it's up at 10/10.
- My main nemesis now is the pump and gravity. I can't really walk anywhere without being in agony after a few minutes.
- Wound healing and swelling have been decent, which I'm happy about - but I don't know what to do about this god damn pump and the insane scrotal pain.
- Even thinking about cycling or intercourse at the moment makes me wince.

Current strategy / thoughts
- I'll give it another week of ice, sensible movement patterns and test drive some proper supporting underwear before speaking with the surgical team about the pain.
- If nothing changes and I'm still at this level of agony at POD14, I'd see that as being sufficiently off-centre to at least warrant a chat with the surgical team about what's going on.

Overall:
David Ralph seems to have done a very good job, my flaccid size and overall appearance of the surgical work done is very solid, with the huge caveat that it hasn't been road tested yet. It does hang to the right quite heavily, so I'll need to see if things straighten out on first inflation. I'm wondering if the hang might help with concealment, as if my 5 inch perma-semi was facing dead ahead that would be one hell of a challenge to compress.

Would love to hear any feedback / anecdotes on what walking pain felt like during the 7 - 14 day mark - I need to be back in the office from about 14th September onwards but perhaps I need to shelve these arbitrary dates and just see how the journey goes? If I have to work from home longer it just can't be helped.