Now normally I only believe in having surgery that makes you prettier. I'm just shallow that way, and you know it and love it or you wouldn't be here to start with. I have done weeks of research on stress incontinence at this point and all I found were boring medical articles filled with big words and painful sounding solutions. So the Diva is going to break it down from a real girl's standpoint and hopefully give you real information as we go hand in hand through this oh so ikky problem.
I started having retention issues right after having a baby. A big huge baby with a big huge head. Vaginally. Thank you assholes at Cigna for not giving the go ahead for a C-section. That's pretty sad when an obstetrician even gets on the phone with you and begs for authorization. Lucky for you my son was okay. Sadly my urethra was apparently mangled with all that pushing.
I found that for the next sixteen years I went to the bathroom about twenty to twenty five times a day and not just to reapply lip gloss. I couldn't run or jump without embarrassing myself. I finally mentioned it to my gynecologist and she gave me a pamphlet on Kegal exercises that was just chockful of great advise. Like this:
"Find a quiet place like your bedroom or bathroom. Sitting in a modified lotus position, close your eyes and imagine a marble. Now imagine you want to pick it up with your vagina."
Now imagine yourself explaining to the nice emergency room doctor why you have a marble so far up in there. It's okay, he's heard all sorts of crazy shit and I promise won't even crack a smile. Personally if I have to imagine picking up anything with my vagina it's either going to be Viggo Mortensen or those to die for Louboutin leopard platforms.
Wow. That's a toss up. Viggo or Louboutin.....Men come and go, but leopard is forever. I have many shoes that have lasted way longer than any of my relationships and sure 'nough have made me way happier. The shoes it is! Sorry Viggo...you'll just have to go back to Idaho and write a strange and obscure poem about our almost relationship.
So I spent years Kegaling, which did eventually lead to me getting a really cute husband.No silly, I didn't pick him up that way! I got him the old fashioned way; on the Internet. Unfortunately I still couldn't run, jump, or sneeze; which wasn't too terrible. Believe me, it's totally possible to not do these things if you don't have to.
However it all ended for me last November. As much as I work out, I don't do things that involve jumping or running in place. But for some reason I decided to take a kick boxing class one Saturday morning after spin class. Things were going great until the jumping jacks. After the first few enthusiastic hops I found the only thing I could do was clamp my knees together and pray nothing hit the floor. I pretended to do the rest of the routine. I never knew I could fake jumping jacks; I'm sure I looked ridiculous with my clamped together knees and rictus of a smile. As soon as we moved to the next steps I was out the door to the bathroom. Thankfully nothing was showing on my light gray shorts and I headed home immediately.
That's when I had to get real. I've mentioned it jokingly to my girlfriends before. We've all had experiences at this point with leakiness and can certainly agree that aging is hell. But screw that, I work hard to stay in size 25 jeans. I have not tortured myself with exercise, starved, and had everything else lifted and tightened just so that I can run around in Depends. Maybe twenty years from now, but I want a few more years of sexy. And sexy is not hearing plastic crunching under your True Religion's. Unless they start making Depends look like thongs or lacy I am not wearing them.
Actually I wouldn't wear them if Prada made them. I am not wearing diapers. So off I went to the urologist.
Let me give you a quick insight on living in a small town. It sucks. Not because it's dull, but because you know everyone and see them all over town. This includes people that do embarrassing things to you. I assumed I would go talk to the urologist and he would take notes; then we would magically go to surgery and never see each other again.
And I was wrong.
First we had to prove I had stress incontinence to the insurance company and this involved a series of tests. Horrible tests. Tests that involved me naked from the waist down, two women, tubes in orifices that have never been explored, and a bladder that had to be filled to the explosion point with saline solution. All of this while stone cold sober. Let me give you good advise here--If you should ever have to do this make sure you are high as a kite beforehand. If you can get your teen or someone else's to get you some Oxycodone, then do it. There is no need to suffer; I already did it for you.
Here's how it went down. First I emptied my bladder into this Pyrex glass vessel that was hooked up to a computer. I thought we were done at this point. Wrong. Then I hopped up on the table and that's where everything started going terribly wrong. The first tube went in my urethra. Awful! But it gets worse. The next tube went in the back entrance. They explained why, but at that point I was so horrified I tuned them out. Then they slowly filled my bladder with saline to see at what point I needed to go to the bathroom. Not that I could, we needed to fill it up to the pain point and see when I would start leaking. Next we moved the tube in my urethra in and out slowly to take pictures of something, who knows what. All I could focus on was the fact that my purse was across the room and I had a full bottle of Xanax in it. I was dying to ask the lady moving the tube in and out if she could let go of my labia for a sec and hand me my purse, but I was just beyond speech. For once. Finally I got to waddle across the room trailing tubes like an alien and sit on the potty while they took readings of the volume of liquid I was holding in for dear life. Finally they left the room so that I could release and not a moment too soon! I felt like a freshman on spring break. But the good news was that I had passed! I have urinary incontinence really bad! Yeeeaahhh for me! But it's all good. I have the girls on my Christmas card list now since we are all so close and everything. Nothing like sharing a traumatic experience to bond folks.....
I can't believe they had to put me through that to prove I pee my pants. I would have just as soon gone over to the TriCare office, drank a glass of water and done a few jumping jacks.
Now I have surgery scheduled for February 10th. I'm having a procedure called a midurethral sling. Basically this means that my urethra is going to spend the rest of it's life in a hammock with a tiny drink with an umbrella. Listening to Bob Marley. Okay, that's just how I picture it. From what I've read my doctor is going to use some sort of Gortex like mesh to create a support system for my hypermobile urethra. Apparently mine runs around all over the place and this sling will keep it in place. The surgery is done on an outpatient basis, it takes about ten minutes and then I'll go home later that afternoon. I won't be able to work out for a few weeks, and I am dreading the first time I go back to spin class. I'll be posting the after effects, but don't expect pictures. I'm a little nervous, but not so much about the surgery. What makes me nervous is that my surgeon is sort of cute in a non-doctory sort of way and it is going to feel really weird having him see me without pants on. Luckily I'll be unconscious when it happens, so it won't be unlike most of the dates I went on in my life.
Have I ever mentioned that I am so glad to be married and not have to be out there anymore?
Hopefully I've given you all information you can use. Please be thinking about me the week of the 10th. I'm looking forward to a good week of narcotics and reality television, and yes I do recognize the irony of that....
Love and kisses,
Cult Diva
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