It started with just the sneezing and having incontinence of urine. Laughing, coughing all of those things that are just normal.
That started after my children were born and for, probably in my 20s and up through probably about 45. When I actually started exercising and really got into trying to get healthy. And was finding that I was unable to get through even an hour of a workout without having to stop and go to the bathroom.
Problems like this are complex they are sometimes an isolated issue with an isolated cause and we can just address that with some sort of therapy. Whether it be medicine or surgery or even physical therapy. But often times it's complex with multiple things occurring and we have to treat the multiple aspects of it.
I thought it was just normal, you know it didn't seem like that big of a deal, you know it didn't happen that often. But as I got older it happen more often and it became more severe.
Many women will come to see their physician for aanother reason or a related reason and in the discussion they may volunteer the information that they are having some of these pelvic floor issues. But a lot of times they find them too embarrassing and they don't want to talk about it.
I had a menstrual cycle that lasted eight weeks and I was done with that. So I went to see Dr. Rush for that. That's how I got hooked up with Dr. Rush was I needed that fixed and during my appointment he had asked me, you know, do you have any other concerns? And I thought well, i'll go ahead and throw this out there. So we started discussing that. And during that appointment is when he actually said let's go ahead and do the test and let's see.
I said there is something we can do about it. I need to sit down and talk with you and examine you and we can talk about all the options but absolutely we can help you.
Dr. Rush is excellent about, you know finding out if it's a surgical issue or if it's something you can do with just bladder training. There's other options it's not always surgery. But you know when it is something you can fix surgically is that you know you look at those options and know that it's available.
We did some testing on her bladder that's done in the office to see exactly how it functions. We do a bladder diary, to see how her bladder is for her and her regular life. And it helps guide some of our treatment decisions and processes. But with him that once we have that information, based upon her symptoms, we talked briefly about some medicines that might help, see if physical therapy was an option, but ultimately Jenelle decided on surgery. Which for her was a very good choice.
All of Janelle's surgery was done in a minimally invasive manner. We had to make no large incisions. It was done either vaginally or through little incisions the size of my fingertip.
It was a big surgery but, my recovery period was really not bad. The pain was minimal, I was back to work within four weeks. It's a six-week recovery I just had to go back on light duty. But it's, it went really well.
As we age we need to remain active and healthy. And anything that gets in the way of that we should try to address as best we can.
I'm able to exercise. I'm able to, you know take trips. I can go to the store without having to find a restroom. I can do just about anything without that interfering with my day.
I just would want women to know that there's something else available to them, then living like that every day. They just have to start the conversation. And they need to not be a shamed of it, they don't need to be embarrassed by it. They are not the only people out there that have this. I was really lucky, I mean, you know to get back a sense of normalcy is a gift. You know, I can't think the people who helped me with that enough.
