Well, I'm home, and up and about. The surgery went well yesterday. It took about 1.5 hours. The doc put a cut in my lower abdomen, on the left side, and pulled the ball up and out. The mass turned out to be non-cancerous! Therefore, he carefully removed the mass, verified proper blood flow to the testis, then put it back in. Yes, I still have a pair.

I'm very sore, as the trauma to the testis, cord, and 3-inch incision. They outfitted me with a jock strap 3 sizes too small to hold everything up tight, and hold the dressing over the incision. I'm on light duty for 48 hours, than I can shower and move around more. Have not had the opportunity to inspect anything yet, and will wait until the harness can be removed. It is very snug. There is swelling, and I apply ice for 30 minutes every hour.

The doc had an emergency surgery that trumped mine, so I was delayed 3 hours, then things went very fast. Had I mentioned no food or drink, not even water, since 900 the night before? Between being thirsty and the IV, which had to be started twice, the first one blew out, I was rather uncomfortable.

I have some medium-strength pain meds. Took as scheduled last night, and will today, then try to wean myself off them Sunday.

Oh, I did get two surprises during surgery, but remember little... They inserted a breathing tube because of my sleep apnia, and catheterized me to empty the bladder. Fortunately, I have no residual discomfort from either, and it startled me when the tubes were being inserted. Then, I remember nothing...

As for complete removal, I was ready for anything. I did learn that it is a very complex part of the body, and one must exercise extreme care with whatever is done. I also learned that the medical community will do everything they can not to remove healthy tissue. I think I made the right decision, along with my doc. Here's hoping recovery is quick, with no complications.

I'll followup with my progress.

Great news!! Thanks for sharing, and I hope everything heals up really quickly.

AtomicMush (imported) wrote: Sun May 08, 2011 3:09 am Well, I'm home, and up and about. The surgery went well yesterday. It took about 1.5 hours. The doc put a cut in my lower abdomen, on the left side, and pulled the ball up and out. The mass turned out to be non-cancerous! Therefore, he carefully removed the mass, verified proper blood flow to the testis, then put it back in. Yes, I still have a pair.

I'm very sore, as the trauma to the testis, cord, and 3-inch incision. They outfitted me with a jock strap 3 sizes too small to hold everything up tight, and hold the dressing over the incision. I'm on light duty for 48 hours, than I can shower and move around more. Have not had the opportunity to inspect anything yet, and will wait until the harness can be removed. It is very snug. There is swelling, and I apply ice for 30 minutes every hour.

The doc had an emergency surgery that trumped mine, so I was delayed 3 hours, then things went very fast. Had I mentioned no food or drink, not even water, since 900 the night before? Between being thirsty and the IV, which had to be started twice, the first one blew out, I was rather uncomfortable.

I have some medium-strength pain meds. Took as scheduled last night, and will today, then try to wean myself off them Sunday.

Oh, I did get two surprises during surgery, but remember little... They inserted a breathing tube because of my sleep apnia, and catheterized me to empty the bladder. Fortunately, I have no residual discomfort from either, and it startled me when the tubes were being inserted. Then, I remember nothing...

As for complete removal, I was ready for anything. I did learn that it is a very complex part of the body, and one must exercise extreme care with whatever is done. I also learned that the medical community will do everything they can not to remove healthy tissue. I think I made the right decision, along with my doc. Here's hoping recovery is quick, with no complications.

I'll followup with my progress.

Yeah, the things I hate the most are the not drinking water for so long and IVs. The IVs are just always cold and eventually sort of bruise me up as I have to move around afer waiting a few hours. You're lucky not to have catheter pain, because I recently had a urological operation where I had a catheter and although I can stand a lot of pain it was really hard to urinate for three days because as soon as I'd start it would be shooting pain and the reflex is to stop the urine.

Glad to hear things have gone well.

OK, here we are 18-days post op. All the bruising is gone as well as the burning pain in the cord and testie. The incision is also healing nicely. My left ball is swollen to 2x it's normal size, and I'm forsed to wear tight-fitting underwear to keep it up tight and from making it impossible for me to walk.

Now the bad news!

The frozen biopsy results came back. There is signs of slow-growing cancer cells! The doc wants to remove the left ball completely. Why didn't he do this the first time around? I asked. Seems he's from the old school, where you remove damaged tissue, but leave healthy tissue alone. And in his opinion, what remained after the mass was removed was healthy. Glad to be able to pay double for what should have been done and completed the first time around. Like I said, before surgery, I told him to remove the entire ball.

Well, I'm scheduled for surgery in about two weeks. I get to have another scar (no more Speedos), and go through recovery one more time. I asked the doc about the other side, take them both. He would not even discuss the matter.

So, here I go again. To top it off, I am scheduled for a CT scan to look around for other traces of cancer. I have no hopes this will come up clean. Hey, I checked out OK in the OR. Lucky me.

Going to have to get a second job to pay for the doc's new Esclade... am I bitter? nooooooooo...

Oh no... well the important thing is to become cancer free and if you become ball free in the process.. so be it..

Well, I did not have the procedure in early June as promised in posting #24. Another emergency befell me when my wife broke her ankle, and she had surgery instead of me. Well, she healed enough to take care of me, so my turn...

My left, cancerous nut was inside me longer than the doc wanted, but no serious harm. A full body scan indicated the cancer was staying in my left nut. After he shaved the mass off the left nut in May, and put it back in, much to my disappointment, it had hurt constantly, and failed to descend to a normal location, but stayed up at the top, hanging on for dear life, literally. Additionally, the post-surgery biopsy showed it indeed was not healthy tissue. It had to come out. The day of the surgery, what should have been a routine procedure turned into a mess. The nut had solidly adhered to the inside of my scrotum, and since it had swollen, and refused to come out the way it went in. The doc had to give my body a strong dose of muscle relaxer, and call for a come-along to get the thing out!

I am now 3-days post-op. The muscle relaxer, after I stopped the strong pain killers, had caused me pain in every muscle. It hurt to move. My chest, back, arms, legs, face, you name it, hurt like hell. I called the doc Friday night, and he explained why, and that it too would pass. So here I am today, the muscle problem is nearly gone. My scrotum is swelled up to softball size, and I have no feeling to touch on anything on the left side, including my penis. There is some minor bruising, but I expect that as was with the first surgery, I will be in Technicolor bloom by next weekend. There is little pain, I ice the area frequently, but can't feel the cold. This is a whole lot more than I bargained for, and it was done in a top-notch medical center! I also fear infection, as a friend had surgery a day before me at the same hospital to clean out some nasty infection in her leg. So far, temp is normal, no fever, hopefully no worry.

I can't imagine how anyone could go through something like this without proper medical care. I know I eventually will recover, and hopefully, have only a half-bag of goodies left, and I'll be Cancer free. That's the important part.

I forgot to mention, my T-production took a nose-dive after the first surgery. I was having some severe side-effects, the worst being mood swings and fatigue. That was unsatisfactory to me. I'm not interested in calming my libido just yet, either. The doc started me on T-replacement by injection, but when everything heals and I settle out, I'll consider an HRT implant. By the way, the injection worked without turning me into a raving sex maniac. I don't fall asleep at work now, so that's good.

I'll report back soon.

OK, here we are, 9-days post-op. Recovery has been real slow. My entire pubic region is swollen, and the side minus the ball is huge, and feels like there is an over-sized water balloon inside. The wife says I could be an underwear model! I talked to the doc, and he says this is due to the severe trauma that the area went through during surgery. Seems that the "repaired" ball that he put back in after the mass removal but prior to the positive biopsy for cancer, swelled significantly, and adhered to the wall at the top of the sack! Too big for the inguinal canal, and stuck to the innards, it took three men and a boy to force out, thus the insides have a lot of healing to do.

That, and the surface nerves from just above the incision, down to the bottom of the sack, my upper thigh and part of the penis are numb to touch. Ice therapy helps a little to relieve the stretching pain, as well as does heat. Doc says this swelling will be around for a while (no day estimate). This is more than I bargained-for. The good news, the latest biopsy is cancer-free.

Well, one down (almost) and one to go...

I've been having more experience with surgery lately (just had my kidneys blasted for ultrasound) and have to say that even the apparently minor stuff is pretty traumatic to the body and worse when things go wrong. While getting my kidneys blasted they put in stents which probably weren't long enough (I'm pretty tall) and so basically they were tugging on my bruised kidneys so much that I was bed-ridden (instead of the go back to work in 48 hours promised).

I also got a vasectomy at the same time (doctor said might as well because I needed general for my vasectomy due to all the damage I've done previously to my testicles and epididimys). Of course that turned out to be more complicated/difficult and anyway up to 5 weeks later I still had serious testicle pain and the "minor" cuts on the scrotum were still red and scabby. Luckily the testicle pain finally subsided, but for weeks I couldn't even put on jeans without wincing, let alone do the sports I like (a jock strap was hell). Yet vasectomy is touted as something you can pretty much walk away from ...

Anyway, just saying to be very suspicious of doctors saying any procedure is minor. The body is really sensitive to any damage, will protect the damaged area with pain and swelling, and there are always dangers of complications. Even going under general anesthesia is a risk every time.

Take care. Also, are you planning to get an implant to restore the looks later? Probably hard to think about right now while still struggling with aftermath of that surgery, but once it is really gone and swelling down you might not like the look ...

No implant for me. Considered it for exactly 5 seconds, and gave up on that idea. I'd rather have the other little fella gone, too. I am too old to worry about the "look", and today, it's about comfort. Anyway, right now with the swelling, I'd draw a crowd at the local gym. lol

reading about the problems guys have had with surgery following Doctors saying shouldn't be any problems, I am reminded of the old saying "Minor surgery is on you, major surgery is on ME."