Hi Brett,
When I asked my doctor about time lines for a lot of this, she said healing and learing differs from person to person. The biggest part of regaining continence is kegel exercises and a schedule to train your new bladder. This is a learned process, not healing. If your cath was pulled in the last few days, you’re just getting started. It really will get better.
Be careful with your liquid intake before bed time and find ways to get rest. With the training schedule it can lead to sleep depravation pretty fast and if you get too run down, you’ll never wake up in time to make it to the bathroom. If the kegels are not working after a while, you might talk to you doctor about biofeedback therapy.
I had my surgery Nov 2 2010, and towards the end of Dec turned 49. The foley’s catheter came out on Nov 18th . The out of control sprinkler at first seems to be pretty normal for everyone. The first two weeks were miserable, just blinking seemed to start the voiding… I’m just getting to where I can count a few dry days and nights in a row, but I’ll continue to wear a pad or diaper for a while. Murphy’s Law.
Regaining continence is just one of the steps in the big picture for beating this cancer. Once you get a little control, things will start to fall into place and eventually normalcy will return.
Bill