Weeks Out: Start Training Now, Not After
If you have weeks, this is the single most useful thing you can do with them. Start pelvic floor training before the operation, not after. The muscle you will rely on for bladder control after surgery is the one you can practise finding today, while everything is still comfortable and nothing hurts.
There are two reasons this pays off. The first is strength and stamina — a muscle that has been working for a few weeks is in better shape than one that has not. The second matters just as much: familiarity. After surgery, with a catheter recently out and sensation altered, finding the right muscle for the first time is genuinely confusing. If you have already done it a few hundred times, you are recalling something rather than hunting for it.
Keep it modest. A few short sessions a day, sitting or lying, is plenty. You are not trying to peak for a race. You are building a habit that will still be there when you are sore and tired and not much in the mood for it.
Weeks Out: Get Someone to Confirm You Are Squeezing the Right Thing
A lot of men do pelvic floor exercises wrong for months without knowing. They clench the buttocks, tighten the stomach, or hold their breath and push down instead of lifting. Doing the wrong movement diligently does not help, and it can make things harder.
Before surgery you have time to check this properly. Ask your surgical team, your GP, or the continence service whether you can be referred to a pelvic health physiotherapist for one appointment. One session is often enough to confirm you have the right muscle and the right direction of pull. Ask early — waiting lists exist, and a referral made now may land before your date.
If a referral is not possible in time, at least do the simple self-checks at home and get comfortable with what a correct contraction feels like: a lift and a squeeze inwards, belly soft, breathing normally, nothing visible happening on the outside.
Weeks Out: Take Load Off the Bladder While It Is Easy
The habits you carry into surgery are the ones you will recover with. Anything that puts extra pressure on the pelvic floor — a persistent smoker's cough, constipation and straining, carrying extra weight around the middle, a heavy evening drinking pattern — makes early recovery harder work. Changing any of them now is easier than changing them while you are recovering.
Constipation is worth singling out. Straining on the toilet is one of the more direct ways to load a healing pelvic floor. Sorting out fibre, fluids and a regular time to go now saves you a genuinely miserable first fortnight.
You do not have to overhaul your life. Pick the one thing on that list that most obviously applies to you and start with it. One real change beats four half-hearted ones.
The Week Before: Ask the Team the Questions You Will Want Answered at 2am
Write your questions down before the pre-op appointment, because you will not remember them in the room. The ones worth asking about continence are specific: how long is the catheter likely to stay in, who removes it and where, what should I expect in the first days after it comes out, when should I start or restart pelvic floor exercises, and who do I phone if something worries me.
Ask for the direct number of the specialist nurse or the ward, and write it somewhere you will find it — not just in your phone. That number is the answer to most of the questions that arrive in the middle of the night.
Also ask plainly what counts as a reason to call. Blood, fever, pain, or being unable to pass urine are matters for your team, not for waiting until Monday. Knowing where that line sits, in advance, saves you from both worrying too much and worrying too late.
The Week Before: Buy the Supplies Now, Not on the Way Home
You will leak after the catheter comes out. Most men do, and for most it improves. Buying protection is far easier to do calmly now, from home, than it is on the day you need it while feeling wretched.
Get male-shaped absorbent pads rather than the generic incontinence pads — the anatomy is different and the fit matters. Buy a couple of absorbency levels, because you will need more in the first days and less later, and buy more than you think. Add a few pairs of snug supportive underpants to hold a pad in place; loose boxers will not. Some men find absorbent underwear easier at night.
While you are at it, sort the practical bits: dark trousers, a waterproof mattress protector, a spare set of everything in a bag by the door, and a bin with a lid in the bathroom. None of this is defeatist. It is the same logic as having a spare tyre.
The Week Before: Set Up the House and the Diary
Think about the first fortnight and remove the obvious friction. A clear path to the bathroom, a light on the landing, a chair you can get out of without hauling on your arms. If your bedroom is upstairs and the only toilet is down, work out now what you are going to do about that.
Look at the diary too. Cancel or move the things in the first couple of weeks that would involve long car journeys, standing for hours, or nowhere obvious to go. You can always add them back. Tell whoever needs to know just enough — you do not owe anyone the details, but a partner or a close friend who understands why you are stopping at every service station makes the trip much easier.
Then leave the rest until after. Recovery is not a project to be optimised. The point of doing this work now is that when you come home, tired and sore and not thinking clearly, the decisions are already made and you can just get on with training and healing.