The next morning...

Being totally honest about it, the next morning is when reality hits. Again, there is nothing too serious to be concerned with. It just will probably feel a lot different to how it did the night before!

I woke up at around 5AM; I actually woke up at this time every morning for the next 10 days or so. The reason for this is quite simple. It appears that this is the time of the morning where I get an erection. Unfortunately, this is something I just have to warn you about. You do continue to get uncontrollable erections right through your recovery period. And, when you do, it can be quite painful (hence me waking up). The pain is nothing unbearable. It feels exactly how you would imagine it to, having a ring of stitches around your penis. I think that the feeling, in my case, was made worse by me worrying that I was somehow going to burst the stitches. This has never happened yet!

When I looked down check everything, I noticed that it had bled quite a lot in the night, so be prepared for this. I went to bed with the dressing still on, and wearing underwear and shorts, but there was still a pretty big patch of blood on my shorts when I woke up. I don’t think it was probably a lot of blood in total. Blood just looks a lot more when it’s spread out. But, anyway, this was one of the only times that it bled, so it certainly wasn’t any big issue. I went straight to the bathroom and discovered that during the night, the dressing had come loose and slid down, meaning that I pretty much had to remove it manually. Well, I did that, and got my first look at it. I will upload a picture underneath this so that you can see.

You will find that it is probably a lot neater than you are expecting. It was certainly not ‘like a dog had chewed it’ as I have read online. However, do not be freaked out by how it looks. The appearance improves rapidly. At first you will see a lot of red and traces of blood. In my case, the shaft of my penis was swollen to a pretty unusual thickness, meaning that the glans looked far too small, like an acorn or something! Over the next few days, the swelling went down, and the glans seemed to grow, almost as if it was finally able to reach its natural size.

It was only when I remove the bandage that I was faced with the real problem that would plague me for the next week or so.

It is the sheer sensitivity of the head of your penis which will drive you insane. You need to be ready and equipped to deal with this. As I read on somebody else’s blog, the glans is intended to be an internal organ, so it stands to reason that it will feel unusual when it is out (especially if it is for the first time). It is just so sensitive that it is very uncomfortable to have it touch anything at first. Walking along becomes a big issue because when it rubs against your clothing, it doesn’t feel good at all. I found that taking painkillers helped a little. However, I think the best thing is just to wear tight fitting underwear when you are walking around. The sort of underwear that holds everything in place. This reduces rubbing, and makes it easier to move about. However, you should probably not wear it for too long when you are sitting still. It is good to let the air get to it as much as possible in the early stages as, apparently, this promotes healing.

I was prescribed Paracetemol and Codeine from the hospital. I did take these regularly (never more than the dosage on the packet) for the first couple of days. They did help, however, I also found that it didn’t really hurt that much anyway if I was sitting still. It is not the sort of pain that aches. If you are at rest, you should be fine. The painkillers seemed to help a little bit with the sensitivity of the head, but I think this is something which just has to improve on its own. And this will happen quicker than you think. As I am writing this, it is two weeks after my operation, and it feels fine!