Pump it up!

I’m halfway through week four since my surgery. The incision located at the top front of my scrotum is completely healed. It looks kinda gnarly and is proving to make shaving my balls extra challenging, but it’s healed nonetheless. Yeah, I shave my balls, primarily cause my wife first shaved them years ago and I’ve been doing it about every other day since. So I’m a little over the top. Then again, most of us who choose to have a prosthesis stuffed inside our dicks probably fall in that category, wouldn’t you say?

I still have a fair amount of discomfort, mainly when I put underwear and pants on. However, it’s subsiding. Either that or I’m getting accustomed to it. I suspect it’s probably a combination of the two. And oh, I almost forget: about pumping it up for the first time.

I waited nearly the full three weeks before taking matters into hand. Truth is, I was a little chicken that it wouldn’t work, or that I wouldn’t be able to get the blasted thing to deflate. I had nearly pumped it up the day after my two-week check up, but I couldn’t seem to get my fingers on the release valve, not to my satisfaction anyway. Go figure: I have balls enough to undergo a penile implant, but not enough to activate it without being reasonably certain I could undo it.

A few days past. I was alone in bed with plenty of private time to thoroughly feel around to check things out. It turns out the pump was not oriented quite the way the doc had indicated. The pump was not sitting upright in my scrotum so consequently the release valve was not located at the top of my scrotum where I had expected to find it. Rather, the pump was twisted a bit and tilted backward so that the release valve was located more toward the back of my scrotum. I figured this out simply by feeling around until I found the two flat surfaces of the valve.

The bulb of the pump was a cinch to find as it is up front and center just below the base of my penis. So I took hold of it and squeezed. I was surprised that it did not seem to compress much at all. But when I released it, I could feel/hear fluid rushing into it. I squeezed again, then again and sure enough, my penis began to stiffen. It would have been cool, really cool if it had begun to get longer and longer (every man’s dream), but I knew that would not be the case. It did get somewhat longer, but mostly it just became erect.

I pumped until I could no longer feel fluid refill the bulb when I released it. Suddenly there I was laying on my back with my penis standing straight up toward the ceiling. Ya gotta love hydraulics! I was happy, no, relieved is a better word. I was relieved that my penis, though not as long as it had once been, was standing at attention with a degree of rigidity I knew would be sufficient to have intercourse. Apart from that nagging size issue that we’ll address in more detail later, seeing the proof that I could achieve and maintain an erection with regularity gave me a feeling of satisfaction, and, if you will, male empowerment that I had not experienced in many years.

The instructions on the card attached to my sample pump suggest that one squeeze of the release valve, with thumb and forefinger positioned on either side, is enough to allow fluid to drain out of the penis and back into the reservoir located in my abdomen. I’m wondering if one needs to be in a reclining position for this to happen (if standing, the fluid would need to defy gravity and run uphill). We’ll test that out later.

The instructions also state that for faster deflation, one can gently squeeze the penis with the other hand to force the fluid back into the reservoir. That’s the route I took. I was surprised that there was very little give to the valve when I squeezed, but nevertheless it worked and my penis returned to its semi flaccid state. After that I pumped it up again and released it again. By then the little guy was aching pretty good, so I decided it was time to give him a rest. I remember thinking as I drifted off to sleep that had my wife and I attempted sex, the ache would have been enough to make it a less than pleasurable experience. Fortunately, I knew that would not always be the case.