My ds had his op about a month ago when he was aged 18 months. His was a fairly mild case too apparently though at no time was I given the impression that not operating was an option.
He was nil by mouth from 3am with a view to going down to theatre at 9am (I think they try to do the younger ones first.) As it turned out they didn't take him down until 1pm so that was a pain but he was fairly happy playing in the dayroom. He must have been starving though, bless him, because he tried to eat the glue on the sticking table - it was in a yoghurt pot .
I did worry about the general anaesthetic and stuff, it's just the unknown isn't it? He was prepped for theatre first thing with a canula in each hand. dh took him down to be anaethetised (they only let one of us go and I thought he would handle it better than me). They did it with a tube rather than a mask I think. Apparently he did struggle but dh held him and sang to him until he went to asleep. Anyway he was down for about 3-4 hours - like JonesTheSteam ds, it was more complex that they thought in the end. dh collected him and I was able to breastfeed him. He was quite pale and drawn but soon revived. Then he had a banana - probably not a good idea as he chucked up a few times. We stayed in overnight - quite an unsettled night as the nurse wanted to check his catheter every couple of hours to make sure it was draining as he didn't seem to be peeing much. It was fine. He was discharged late the following afternoon. We were shown how to deal with his catheter - you basically have two nappies and the catheter just drains into the outer nappy with the inner nappy only needing to be changed if he poos. He was so well bandaged you couldn't see anything.
In the morning he was playing quite happily, by the afternoon at home he was running round like nothing had happened. Amazing really, how they bounce back. I'm sure if dh had been messed around with down there he'd be moaning for weeks! He had a few spasms in the first 48 hours where the body tries to reject the catheter but you get medication to deal with this. We were also sent home with antibiotics to ward off any infection and an ibuprofen. Also a laxative which we didn't need to give him as it happened.
The bandage didn't seem to bother him one bit. I thought he'd be grabbing at the catheter at every nappy change but it was relatively easy.
A nurse came to the house ten days later to remove the catheter. That was quite upsetting for him though I was amazed when the bandages came off there wasn't any bruising - it was just very very swollen. It's still swollen now and I expect it to be for a while yet. We see the consultant in September to assess things and see whether or not he'll need a follow up. I really hope not as he'll be that bit older and it'll be hard to explain to him.
The whole experience was honestly not half as bad as I'd feared. He coped with it all brilliantly. His penis always used to look quite sore and he was prone to infections prior to the op but there has been none of that since.
As howdoo said I think it is an important thing for a man, although they did refer to ds's operation as "cosmetic". The surgeon said it took longer than expected as there was a severe bend to ds's willy. If it had gone uncorrected I'm imagining that could have caused issues with sex and ejaculation, as well as simply not being able to pee properly. I wouldn't have wanted that for him.
As an aside, my brother had this condition and had two ops as a toddler. He's had absolutely no problems since.
Blimey, sorry for the epic! I did the same thing as you - researched the internet, joined some bizarre Yahoo group full of alarming stories, and got quite scared, before posting here. There were lots of reassuring messages from people. I hope you feel reassured too. Good luck .