indignities

Another hospital appointment, another procedure, more indignity.  trudge to hospital, dressing gown in a shoulder bag, navigate to X-ray department.  Clothes off, gown on, dressing gown on (to hide the unappealing sight of my back view through the slit in the gown).  Quick few drops of Rescue Remedy (it really does help - its supposed to contain alcohol - is it just the alcohol? Can 2 tiny drops of alcohol do that?)

And do you know, it was fine.  Interesting. No indignity, just very professional people doing their jobs well and treating me as a rational and functional human being, explaining everything as we went along, encouraging me to take part, to take control, to understand and to learn to manage my condition.

Do you know what a prolapse is? its when any or all of your uterus, bladder or rectum collapses into your vagina. Its not life-threatening but you find yourself being incredibly careful when you cough or even laugh in case it all falls right out and you are left with bits of your insides greeting you in a way that nature never intended.  It means that what collects in your bladder or rectum can bulge into your uterus and then not be able to escape out as it should - so you can be desperate for a pee and nothing happens. At the moment its all held nicely in place by a wonderful, non-technical and extremely effective rubber ring (it looks just like the rings you chuck for the dog to bring back to you), but this lovely ring can't fix the weaknesses and ineffectivenesses of the opening of the bladder, or indeed the rectum so that what was once nicely held in until I decided it should come out, can sometimes leak out unprompted by me.  and even, unknown by me.

No fun at all.

And sometimes its hard knowing exactly what is going on, which is scary and humiliating. Hence all these undignified tests and procedures. And I am finding a branch of our much-maligned National Health Service where wonderful people treat me with respect and care and are determined to find out what is going on, what can be done, and to give me the opportunity to make informed choices about what to do and take back control of my body and my future.

The woman told me yesterday that lots of women happily decide not to have surgery, happily leak wee as a matter of course and carry on with their lives using pads, and even, she said, she really said this, live with a prolapse that has come right out of their body - just carry on with life and elect not to have surgery to put it right. Astounding.

So I spent 20 minutes watching my bladder working via a TV monitor and learning all sorts of things about my body in the process. We are so lucky to have access to this sort of stuff.