Intro: I had Stage 2 RFF completed just under 3 weeks ago. My Stage 2 entailed: UL, glansplasty, vnectomy, scrotoplasty, and burial. Generally with RBL, burial is left for your last stage which in my case would be Stage 3, but you can request for earlier burial which is what I did. For this stage, it's only an overnight hospital stay in a smaller private room. The nurse mainly comes in to empty your drain, urine bag, and give you your meds. You can eat the same day and a hospital staff will eventually bring you some food. I was also given miralax once during the hospital stay. Once you're discharged, you can pickup your prescribed medications at the pharmacy downstairs. Prescribed were: 2 different antibiotics that are both taken twice a day for the course of a week, advil, tylenol, gabapentin, oxy, and medication for bladder spasms which is to be taken for 13 days. For the bladder spasms medication, they prescribe an additional one (the one you are to take daily is 10mg whereas the additional one is 5mg) to take if you're experiencing pain from the spasms specifically still. Advil and tylenol is every 6 hours while gabapentin is every 8. Oxy is only as needed and should only be taken if experiencing severe enough pain. You will have a drain tube in the lower thigh, an sp tube that's initially connected to a urine bag which can be strapped to you're leg (you will also be provided with a larger night bag), and a catheter in the penis. Drain gets removed at the first post op. Penis catheter gets removed at the second post op while the sp is disconnected from the urine bag and instead connected to a flip flow. At the fourth post op, given that you've been urinating through the penis without any issues, you get the sp removed.
Pain: I would say the most pain/discomfort for me was honestly the gas that gets dispersed after surgery since they used robotics. Nothing crazy just feels like a bad cramp. For me I would feel it around my collarbones mainly. This lasted for about a day or 2. There was a little bit of pain around the incision they reopened on the thigh (this was done to take the gracilis muscle) but nothing noteworthy and at best a 2 on the pain scale. This was maybe for a week. Vnectomy and scrotum are the ones that would give the most pain/discomfort and even then I wouldn't describe it as very painful. Any pain/discomfort would come for a few seconds to maybe 5 minutes at most and would be at worst a 4 on the pain scale. Factors that would influence an increase pain/discomfort in the area would be dependent on sitting position. Sitting up is fine but can become uncomfortable after awhile. This can be eased by sitting in a reclined position, making sure to remove the pressure from the scrotum. SP tube is something to be mindful of as pressure on it or any tugging can give to a bit of pain. Certain positions can of course also interfere if it'll cause a shift at the site of insertion of the sp tube. These are also very short moments of pain/discomfort which went away on its own once I made sure nothing was interfering. For 1.5 weeks, I stayed on advil, tylenol, and gabapentin just per instructions. Honestly, I had to consistently put reminders to even know it was time to take them cause I wouldn't even be thinking about them. I'm currently not taking any meds. Keep in mind that pain will be different for every person so while I say my pain was minimal and very manageable, it may be different for you or someone else.
Bathroom Use: I didn't experience any constipation and actually went the same day I went home. For this reason, I didn't use any miralax and/or senokot after. For any pooping, it wasn't diarrhea but it wasn't solid. This was the case for about 1.5 weeks. While, things have slowly gotten more solid over time, currently it's still not fully solid. Personally, as much as I don't like it, I much prefer this over solid due to the vnectomy site nearing the bum. When sitting to use the toilet, keep in mind how you're sitting. You initially want to be careful not to have your legs too spread apart because of the vnectomy site. When you sit on the toilet, the back of your thighs unintentionally get spread so you may want to sit down with your legs a bit closer together than usual. I quickly felt a sharp pain the first few times when sitting down due to this. Pain was very short and lasted only as long as my legs were in that position. Also direct feeling is swollen and numb so it's sometimes hard to keep in mind that it can become painful especially so unintentionally. As time went on, I've been able to have my legs a bit more open without that concern and the swelling/numbness in the area has gone down significantly. I'm still mindful as that area still is in the process of healing. As far as urinating goes, I only experienced some bladder spasms during my overnight. It's not even something I felt or realized was happening. However, on two occasions the area of where the sp tube is inserted, was soaked. Unfortunately for me, they ended up placing an additional stitch in to make sure sp was more properly secured. After they secured the sp tube, I didn't have any further issues. I'll be going over urinating/voiding from my penis in a separate post. In short though, I've had no problems with peeing through my dick. Very rarely do I have anything coming out the sp tube after and if there is, it's either a tinkle or 1-2% of the remaining urine.
Time Off Work: I only requested 2 weeks off work since a good portion of my work is on the computer and would have the bulk of the attached things off by then. So far has been easy to manage and I've had no issues with work or going out.
Sensation: Any sensation I had previously gained was not affected in this stage. If anything, things have been slightly more sensitive. I currently have some sensation along the shaft on the left side, a bit around the base of the shaft, and between my dick and scrotum. There is a bit of muted sensation in the scrotum presumably where the burial is. For the sensation along the left of the shaft, if I run a finger/hand along it I can feel the nerve tingling. Same with around the base of the shaft and the place between my dick and scrotum, it's a tingling sensation.
Anyways, to wrap things up, mobility is truly a lot easier this time round than the previous stage. I didn't have anyone stay with me and my mom would just pass by randomly. I haven't needed any assistance with personal care so she's only helped with chores such as laundry, cleaning, groceries, and food. I'm itching to return to normalcy since I feel so ready to but I know my body is still healing. I'm also excited to finally remove the sp tube next week!
As always, please feel free to ask any questions you may have, I’ll do my best to answer them.
