I was walking by 18 hours post-op and climbing stairs at 48 hours. First shower (normal, standing up) at 5 days, unpacking and dilation at 6, catheter removal at 7. Dilation was fine, really; never more than a little uncomfortable, then or now, and by the time the nurse showed me how I was far past being embarrassed. The pain was about a 5 maximum on that 1-10 scale on the first day, dropped to 3-4 by day 2 and I was off all painkillers but regular Tylenol by day 3. By the time I went home on day 8 it was basically about a 1 unless I overdid it walking or plopped down in a chair too hard, and then it would be sore for a while; that stage lasted for weeks. It was a "deep tissue bruise" sort of pain, too - it wasn't excruciating, more of an ache.
I did have excruciating pain from bladder spasms around day 3 or 4, which was apparently from the catheter irritating the bladder; I had to take oxycodone for a day or so to deal with that, but it was NOT because of the original surgery, and in fact the pain from my bladder was much worse than the GRS pain ever got. As I recall, that was the only pain that did keep me from sleeping (they did offer sleeping pills, but I didn't need them).
Since I didn't have general anesthesia, I bounced back faster from the actual surgery; I did wake up nauseous from the morphine + spinal but that wore off in a few hours.
I could walk half a mile and do household chores by the time I went home, but was exhausted for the first month and tired easily for months after that. (I'd say I could walk "normally" by around the time I left, and I took over a couple hours of driving to get home, too.) And it took me a year to be able to ride my bike.
I *was* told not to lift over ten pounds for the first month and to avoid full-immersion baths (sitz baths were required) and swimming pools for 3 months.
I did have tremendous swelling - even the nurses were shocked - and that didn't go away entirely until, no joke, about a year and a half post-op. But I guess I was lucky in other respects, as there was no significant bleeding or bruising, so everything looked almost normal as soon as the bandages came off. Just... big from swelling. (I was also lucky that I had 100% sensation from the moment I woke up and was orgasmic in my sleep at 3 weeks post-op.)
As for pooping, I had two enemas beforehand plus the morphine causes constipation, so it wasn't a problem; in fact, they were far more worried about getting people TO poop afterward. Usually if you hadn't by about the third day they'd be pushing stool softeners. I was lucky and things, er, went fine on their own.
I went to Brassard, who does penile inversion, and I was 34 at the time.
