Operation for Undescended Testicle

Hi all,

My son is having an operation to bring down his undescended testicle on May 10th - a week before his 1st birthday.
I know it's not major surgery but I am still scared by the idea of my baby being put to sleep and I'm also wondering what the recovery period is like. Can anyone shed any light on this for me?

Thank you!!!

Edited by Pinkybar

Thanks Leelee Good to hear your nephew's recovery was so quick! I am dreading it so it's great to know it's not going to be too bad.

Mama2two thanks for your post. So good to hear that your daughter was fine. I am really worried about the part when they put him under. Especially as he will be grumpy from not eating or drinking since 4am and he will be looking to BF so I'm expecting it to be quite distressing!

I'm trying to think of how long ago it was we saw the specialist... I think it was about 3 or 4 months ago. I was told that they like to do the op when the babies are around 12 - 18 months old so you might have a very short wait! I would love to know how you get on with the specialist.

Oh Zen_Jenn that does sound tough. Poor wee baby. So glad you are on the other side of it now.

Thank you so much for the advice to have the baby carried around the hospital by my partner. That is a really good idea. Hopefully he will be able to distract him for long enough. Luckily we are first on the list.

wow! that is quick! And how awesome to get it done privately for free! It is great that you will have it over and done with.
Oh... and you will be able to come and tell me all about it. I hope it is easy peasy.

I hope your daughter has a wonderful birthday and that the week goes smoothly even though it's a big one!

Hi, sorry it has been a mad few weeks with birthdays and surgery.
It was ok. Not as bad as I thought it would be in most ways, in some ways worse if that makes sense.
The worst part for me was holding him down on the bed in the theatre while they put the gas mask over his face, and the fear of having to clean poo off some very swollen stitched up boy bits

I guess I should start at the beginning :)
Had to be at the hospital at 7am - Yuck! Had a hungry, grumpy boy as he hadn't eaten since his 6.30pm bottle the night before. Met with the surgeon who marked the side he was going to operate on, then met with the Anesthitist(sp?). He was given some pamol to get the pain relief started straight away. I went into the theater with him while DH was taken to the waiting area and held his hand while they put him under. He was pretty upset but not screaming which was a bonus. I was then led down to the waiting area. I had been told that it would take around 20-30 minutes so was a mess after an hour. I was about to lose it when they came to get me to take me to the recovery room. Dh was taken to his room while I went to get him. He was having cuddles with a nurse when I got there and was ok. Pretty groggy and a bit dissorientated. They said that the best thing was if we could get him to have a nap at that point, that he would wake up feeling much better and happier (which ended up being true). All went well which was good but he had a hernia that needed fixing at the same time so hence the longer surgery. BTW, apparently the hernia is really common and quite often the cause of the problem to begin with. They also had given him a mini spinal block that would last around 6-7 hours so he really wasn't feeling any pain.
We went from there to his room, where he had some of a bottle (he was beside himself!) which he then promptly threw up all over me and then went to sleep on me for probably and hour and a half. They were right, he woke up much happier. we were told to give him pamol every 4 hours for a few days to keep the pain down.
We were released at that point and went home. He slept all the way home and pretty much up till about 1.30 when he woke up properly. He was really upset when he woke up. It was obviously really hurting and it was horrible to see him so miserable. I ended up giving him ibuprofen as well as the pamol which seemed to help. He was pretty ok from then on, although he was pretty wobbly because of the spinal and pretty grouchy and miserable the rest of the day.
The next day he woke up happy as larry, you would never have known anything had happened to him the day before so that was nice. Pretty much back to normal except for needing pamol 4 hourly and being a bit grumpy at nappy changes.

So the things that I have learned from it are:

Change nappies in a warm room for a couple of days after. The 'shrinkage' in a cold room meant the stitches pulled the poor little guy and he would cry and cry!

Get to pooey nappies immediatley to stop them being smooshed around the whole area. Its not fun cleaning poo off a stitched up testicle.

I was horrified at the size of the incision to his groin. I had asked some questions but obviously not enough! I had expected the stitches in the testicle (which by the way has gone through some very interesting colour changes in the past 10 days - pretty much the whole rainbow has been covered!) but hadn't realised the size of the wound in the groin area. We were given an extra wound dressing, but if they can ask for two or three. They are the second skin ones and are waterproof for bathes etc, but I found Anthony got pretty good at peeling them partially off and they can't be restuck! Otherwise you can buy them at the Pharmacy which I ended up doing. I had to change the first one the next day as there was a lot of blood in it and it started seeping out. There were no external stitches on that wound so it looked awful! Seems ok now though in saying that.

So that's basically it. Sorry its so long. Let me know if you have any other questions, and good luck for Tuesday. Let us know how he goes.

Good luck for the op Pinky!! <3

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. My 9mo is due to see the specialist next month and I was starting to worry about whole process already. Knowing some of the details and what I can expect has alleviated my fears a bit. Thank you again!

Thanks Linzy and thanks for the tips.

I'm so glad to hear it all went well Pinkybar and that things are back to normal

We have just had Anthony's two week check here and the surgeon is really pleased with the results. Don't need to see him again now till he is 5 for a check up - Yay :)