Dale's Unhappy

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My name is Dale and I'm a 53 yr old cancer victim. I had a radical robotic prosectamy done in Feb. 05. After waiting a year for a hint of my normal self I resorted to pumps, pills etc.. no luck. The pump brought him to life but the rings wouldn't keep him there. After a year or so of this I found a woman who was willing to help me deal with it. With her help, she loved oral, I began to regain some stiffness. She said as long as it was in her mouth it grew and stayed firm. But I was impatient, I wanted intercourse. So I read all I could on the implant and set it up. Maybe I'm being too hard (no pun intended) on the doc but this is crazy. I went from a 2 fister to less than 1. Now I've been told that lots of men are about this size and they are healthy. All that may be true but all and I mean all the brochures, all the web sites promote the stats of only losing cm's not inches. And it also feels so weird. I can feel what to me feel like joints? It it no way feels natural. And all the talk about increased girth. Ha, I lost nearly half of that and what I have feels like two chop sticks coverd in skin. No roundness at all. Now maybe I'm just being vain but I'm embarrassed. I'm so disgusted by the sight of it I won't even pump it up to stretch it. I just want it gone. I would rather be impotent with at least the memory of being a normal man than look or feel this thumb sticking out of my gut.
Maybe at this point in time I should wait before I talk because my anger is still so fresh but I'm afraid of not doing anthing. But all I get from most medical people is platitudes of "oh you will find it works just fine", "you'll get used to it" and "give it time". So I'm supposed to just do nothing for a year or so and then start fussing?
I feel I was lied to and mislead from the beginning and I want to lash out at the whole system.
Sorry I'm not one of your "I'm so happy" stories. The truth is I doubt this will get printed at all because I assume this is just a front for the AMS people. I guess I'll soon know!!

Dale

Okay Dale:
I printed it. Feel Better now?
I did a search through almost 9,000 emails that I have received and answered and didn’t find a single email from you going back two and a half years. You’ve been venting your sarcasm at me for the past week. Too bad you didn’t read very far in my blog or you would have read my discussion about loss of size in prostatectomy patients. I discussed it in many posts and the fact that I discussed it with my own personal Urologist. I’ve talked about the fact that one out of three men who have a radical prostatectomy loose significant length do to this procedure. I have my two cents opinion on the reasons for it. If you had bothered to read this blog back, you would have been warned about this. If a marathon runner breaks their leg and the doctor put the leg in a cast, for say 4 to 5 years and that body part didn’t get used in all that time, the leg is going to atrophy. Use it or loose it.

In other words, I say it in several posts on this blog. I recommend that at a minimum anyone contemplating penile implant surgery to obtain a good quality vacuum erection device prior to having surgery and use it twice a day for 10 to 20 minutes achieving a good firm erection for a bare minimum of two month before surgery. The European Society of Urologists recommends this. You didn’t bother to read my blog, yet you’ve vented your anger and sarcasm towards me. Dale, this is my blog. It is not affiliated in any way with AMS Medical or Coloplast. Life happens and you’ve lived a lot of years with time and disease taking its toll on your body. Your surgeon saved your life in 2005. Believe me; you don’t want to die of prostate cancer. Towards the end you will beg for death as the disease spreads into the pelvic bone and up into the spine and the pain is indescribable. That said, you lost 2 to 3 centimeters of your ureter that used to be in your prostate. Your surgeon relocated your bladder lower into your abdomen and then reattached the ends. The body tends to push the bladder back where it used to be pulling your penis back into your body. 4 years of your penis remaining inside your body has left your muscle, your penis, badly atrophied.

This blog is my personal attempt to share information with other men about life with a penile implant. I feel bad for you up to a point. There have been dozens of studies on satisfaction with penile implants. The published rate is 92% to 94%. Satisfaction is in the eye of the beholder. You make the charge that you were lied to and mislead. In what way? By whom? Not by me. I’ve been upfront on this subject. Your doctor? I recall the paperwork that I signed and read including the part about a whole range of possibilities and warnings. You have excoriated me over your failed surgery. Buddy, I posted dozens of pictures of myself and several dozen pictures of guys who volunteered their stories on this blog out of the goodness of their hearts. They are true stories by guys who have lived them. None of us made a dime to do this. So guess what Dale, it’s time to man up and climb down off of your pity party. The penile implants that are available to us have enabled thousands of us to resume normal sexual relationships once again in our lives. I sincerely hope that this works out for you eventually.
Bob