Oh my god. Get yourself a sitz bath ASAP. Here's an Amazon link, but every pharmacy has them. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F0QAWIO/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_rpn4EbGQ9W1QD.
All you do is fill it up with warm/hot water, put it on the toilet (seat up), and relax for 10-20 mins. It promotes healing, cleans the area, and reduces pain. I'm shocked your doctor didn't tell you to do them. It's the only thing that really helped me with pain. And I healed up incredibly fast with it.
Hey there! I had an incision & drainage done a few weeks ago on a non-infected cyst (see: painless) and the word catheter fell out within 12 hours of the surgery. My doctor said it was probably because the cyst was so small. She also told me that even though the bump feels like a grape, the cyst itself was actually very small and I was just feeling the edema/swelling. That's not crucial to my answer but I figured why leave details out!
Anyway, the word catheter is supposed to be as effective as marsupialization from what I understand? But I guess there's always the possibility of the catheter falling out too soon which means, like me, you got your vagina cut open for nothing. I guess I can't attest to the recovery with the catheter beyond those 12 hours but I can say that my discomfort was reduced SIGNIFICANTLY as soon as the stupid thing deflated and fell out. If I had to choose I would probably pick marsupialization but I also don't know if there are higher risks. It's probably just a harder procedure.
Best advice: if you haven't purchased a sitz bath yet, I would highly recommend this one from amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F0QAWIO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There's nothing special about the basin itself but the bag thing it comes with was SO helpful with recovery because I would fill up the bag and leave it next to the toilet and when I peed, I would aim the tube at my incision so that I was always peeing with a flow of water in that area. It made peeing pain-free which seems to be a huge complaint about recovery.
I wish you good luck with your surgery, whichever you choose. I'm so sorry you have to go through it at all but please know that you're not alone!