Health5 min(s) read
Man who had penis rebuilt using skin from his arm reveals one major advantage over a normal penis
A man who underwent surgery to have his penis reconstructed using tissue from his arm after a cancer diagnosis has revealed one unexpected advantage of his new anatomy.
Paul Lucas, a local government official from Dudley, was 37 when he was diagnosed with penile cancer and had to undergo a penectomy after his wife, Nicky, booked an appointment for him to see a doctor.
Lucas did a recent interview with OMG Stories and revealed that he first noticed something unusual just months after marrying Nicky in April 2022.
"We got married in April 2022, and in that summer, around June, I could tell something wasn't quite right," he said. "I thought it was just like my pee stream was quite off. It was like spray or at different angles, and to be honest, I just sort of waved it off and thought it was just one of those things that will happen, and it'll correct itself."
However, the problem continued, and Lucas eventually noticed growth and changes around the tip of his foreskin.
Cancer surgery left him unable to look at his own body
The local government officer was quickly referred to a specialist and diagnosed with the rare cancer.
He said in the interview that he "expected" the diagnosis as he was doing his own research.
"You know a tumor when you see one; you know someone's not quite right. That sort of realization and hearing that word, cancer, for me, it's always the start of a process that makes me nervous. So once I heard the word, it's like, 'Right, okay, what do I have to do? What do we have to do to sort of fight this?'" he said.
He soon faced three procedures, beginning with "total penectomy," which involved removing his penis - something he did not know would happen until 24 hours after the operation.
He remembers waking up from surgery, feeling happy that he "wasn't in pain" anymore.
"By then it was October, so I'd been struggling with sort of discomfort and pain for about three to four months at that point, and it was just getting worse, so getting rid of that pain was just a lovely feeling," he said.
"I felt quite sort of teary, like I think most people do after recovering from an operation, really wondering where you are, and you don't really know what they've done to you because it's all sort of wrapped up, but I just wanted to see and talk to my wife," he added.
However, the emotional consequences proved far more difficult as he confessed that he struggled to accept the changes to his body and was too scared to look at himself after the operation.
"I avoided any sort of sight of it, to be honest. I was terrified of looking at it...I had internal sort of disgust in myself and like self-hatred. I just couldn't bring myself to look at it," he said.
Lucas subsequently went through two lymph node operations to determine whether the cancer had spread, and said he did not require further chemotherapy.
Lucas underwent complex surgery to reconstruct his penis
After the penis removal, Lucas underwent a complex, "sci-fi" surgery to reconstruct his manhood.
In a previous interview on This Morning, Urology surgeon Wai Gin Lee explained that the operation involved reconstructing Lucas' phallus and urethra using tissue from his arm, with nerves connected to those in the pelvic region.
Lucas' wife revealed she was involved in the design of his new penis, saying: "When it came to the size measurements, we said, 'Why not go a bit bigger if possible,' so that’s what we did."
And Lucas admitted that the results came with an unexpected bonus.
"It's bigger for a start - so that's positive," he said. He also explained that regaining sensation is a gradual process.
He said: "There isn't much sensation at the moment because that is the slow process of the nerves regrowing. So it's getting there. I'm getting short, electric shocks through it occasionally because that's the nerve endings misfiring.
"It's nice. It's sort of warm. It's sort of soft to the touch because it's made made of skin and muscle. It's quite dense, I would say. It's quite heavy," he added.
Lucas will go through the second and third parts of the surgeries, which are more for "cosmetics," to create a glans and then insert an erectile device, which makes the penis functional in an intimate setting.
Despite the remaining surgeries, he shared that he and his wife had already been intimate.
He described the experience as emotional after everything they had endured together.
"I never thought I would be brave enough to put myself through this operation, and it had almost been three and a half, four years at that stage since we'd last been intimate," he said.
"And to have that sort of connection again, even though I couldn't really feel anything, but to have that sort of physical sense in my head, it's like, 'Wow' all this hard work, all this recovery.
"It was really just a lovely moment that we shared between the two of us," he added.