RP at 56, how long before most return to work?

Sadly Gilly, your OH is of average age when you look at members on here - many like my husband were around 50 at diagnosis and we have more & more men being diagnosed in their early to mid 40s. Anecdotally, younger men are more likely to have the op and older men are more likely to have radiotherapy so it sounds like the doctors you have spoken to are a bit behind the times! .

Return to work rather depends on what kind of job he does and whether he had open RP or keyhole or robotic RP? With keyhole / robotic, many are back at work as soon as they are allowed to drive (insurers vary but many will not cover you until 6 weeks post op). My husband had open RP and could have been back in the office around week 10 except his insurer wouldn't cover him to drive until 12 weeks post-op.

After my RP I invested in a rubber ring from Boots the chemist, reason being when your undercarriage comes back to life it can be quite sore to sit on, don't drive the car until everything has settled down, it can be painful like I found out. Go for brisk walks & don't forget to do your pelvic floor exercise it helps, after 8 weeks I didn't need pads, however I did leak a bit after a cough , sneeze or fart, but the leak was minimal.

Regards

James

I am 57 and had RP by Davinci robot in August, I have a fairly active job and returned to work after 8 weeks, I still have minor pain where the lymph glands were removed if I over do it, everyone recovers at their own rate and your OH needs to listen to his body, he is the best person to know when his limits are reached. Every day the pains will reduce, as far as incontenance goes, personally I was not looking forward to the incontenance, I was catheterised for 10 days but on removal I had 1day with slight leakage.

Wishing your OH a speedy recovery

DaveM

Certainly getting the catheter out will be a great relief, what I would say is make sure he does pelvic floor exercises, I found an app for my phone that allowed me to do my PFE’s up to 4 times a day, this will also help and improve any incontenance,

Good luck for Saturday

DaveM

Morning.
I had the Da Vinci op aged 53 and was back at work after 2 weeks (self employed...), and trying to rock climb again. OK, so the climbing was a little premature, and could only really do it at 6weeks+! Leakage was very manageable, I wore a pad for safety during the day for a few weeks, then no longer needed. I believe a strict PFE regime helped with this. The catheter was very unpleasant!