I had my PVP at Haywards Heath in the Princess Royal Hospital under Mr
Nawrocki on Thursday 08/01/04 through the NHS (that's the UK National Health
Service). There are 2 centres in Haywards Heath and the 2 surgeons cooperate
quite extensively.
My op was done at 8:30am and I spent the rest of the day quite dozy from the
after-effects of the anaesthetic, although with no real pain and
catheterised. Wandered to the bathroom with drip and catheter to excute
bowel movement in the evening - I had taken some mild natural laxative on
Wednesday evening, ie before the op.
Woke up fine on Fri morning, had the cathter out - the nurses were very
kind, but OUCH :-) and voided 300ml about an hour later as I had been
drinking quite a lot of water with that aim (the aim is better now with a
better stream :-)). Didn't feel that the stream was much better, but it
was - a bit.
I was released at about 2pm to catch the 2:30pm train connection back to
Scotland (Dumfries) and arrived home after 10pm. Went to bed and had to get
up at 6am to urinate about 500ml! WOW. Same thing happened the following
night, but not since.
The first few times did start off with some pain at start-up, but that's
away now, although I do have a mild aching feeling at the prostate as the
day progresses. The flow varies at different times of the day, although it's
never less than 10ml per sec (was 4.7 pre PVP) and gets as high as 25ml per
sec bfore noon (the measurements are for the high rate for about 10 secs).
I've got the highest praise for the surgeon and staff as well as the
conditions within the hospital which was kept spotless. Mr Nawrocki did not
oversell the procedure, but warned me that there was a possibility of
bleeding and pain afterwards and the full effects might not be apparent for
up to 3 months. He did concede that the after-effects were much easier than
with a TURP.