After prostate cancer surgery
After your operation, you will wake up in the recovery room. Once it’s safe to do so, you usually go back to the ward. Recovery rooms and wards are busy and often noisy places that some people find strange and disorienting. You'll feel drowsy because of the anaesthetic and painkillers.
It takes a few weeks for you to recover after your operation. Most people spend one night in hospital. Your nurse usually encourages you to get up and walk around a few hours after your surgery. When you go home, you should continue with gentle activities, such as walking.
Most people feel that they are getting back to normal activities between 4 to 6 weeks after surgery. You should not undertake strenuous activities for 6 weeks.
Tubes and drains
When you wake up, you may have several tubes in you. This can be frightening, so it helps to know what they’re for.
You may have:
- a drip to give you fluids usually through a vein in your arm
- a tube into your bladder (urinary catheter)
- an oxygen mask
The urinary catheter usually stays in for 7 to 10 days if you’ve had a radical prostatectomy. Before you leave the hospital your nurse will show you how to look after the catheter at home.
After removing the catheter, you may have difficulty controlling your urine. This is usually temporary. It's important to prepare for this and have a supply of urinary pads at home.
Pain
It’s normal to have pain for the first week or so. You have painkillers to help.
Tell your doctor or nurse as soon as you feel any pain. They need your help to find the right type and dose of painkiller for you. Painkillers work best when you take them regularly.
You get painkillers to take home. Your nurse will talk to you about:
- how often to take them
- when to take them
- what side effects you may get
Contact your doctor if you still have pain or if it gets worse.
Eating and drinking
Your team will let you know when you can start eating and drinking again. Usually, you will be allowed to drink water in the recovery room, and eat once you return to the ward.
Your wound
After a radical prostatectomy, you might have medical glue or dressings over your wounds.
Your stitches are usually dissolvable and will fall out by themselves after a few weeks. Before you go home the nurse gives you information about how to care for the wound.
Getting up
Your nurses help you to move around as soon as possible. They check you’re doing your breathing and leg exercises. This helps you recover.
You might be sitting in a chair within 2 hours of your operation. And if you are usually mobile, you’ll be walking around your hospital ward after 3 or 4 hours.
Making progress
During the first 24 hours after your operation, you’ll start to feel better. The drips will come out, you’ll start eating and can move about better.
You’ll begin to feel like you’re making progress.
Passing urine after surgery
When you wake up from your operation you have a tube into your bladder to drain urine. This is a urinary catheter. You have this in place for a couple of weeks and you go home with it. Then you go back to hospital and the nurse or doctor removes the catheter.
You're likely to have some urine leakage when they take it out. It’s a good idea to have a supply of incontinence pads at home and to take a couple with you to hospital.
Pelvic floor exercises target and strengthen the muscles that control your bladder. Your doctor or specialist nurse will talk you through what to do. Research has shown that pelvic floor exercises can help you stop or reduce urine leakage.
Going home
Most people go home about 1 day after robotic prostate cancer surgery. It might be longer if you have open surgery.
You’ll need help when you first go home. You’re likely to get tired quickly for the first week or two. It helps to do a bit more every day.
Try:
- sitting for less time each day
- walking around the house a bit more each day
- building up to walking outside
What you can do depends on how fit you were before your surgery and any problems you have afterwards. Talk to your doctor or specialist nurse if you’re unsure about what you should be doing.
Contact your doctor or specialist nurse if you have any problems or symptoms you’re unsure about. You’ll also have follow up appointments when you can raise any concerns you have.
Follow up
You’ll have follow up appointments to check your recovery and sort out any problems. You can also talk to your doctor or specialist nurse about your progress.
Your specialist nurse team might phone you within the first few days after you get home. Your first check up is around 6 weeks after your operation.
How often you have appointments depends on your situation. It also varies between hospitals. For example, for the first 2 years you might have a blood test and an appointment with one of your team every 3 to 6 months. After 2 years, this often becomes less often.
