Failed TVT sling surgery is ruining my marriage
I’m a 50 year old female dealing with stress and urge incontinence. It developed after birthing my oldest who was large for me, posterior so required being turned manually, and whom I had when I was close to 40 and likely in the start of perimenopause.
It has progressively gotten work and I had to stop running, going to the gym, hiking etc as no pad was good enough anymore for how bad my leaking is. I have tried all the meds with little change and bad side effects, special underwear that don’t absorb anything compared to how much I leak, pelvic floor physio, and every gadget and pill and tea online. This has cost me so many thousands of hours.
My husband and I made the decision to go for sling surgery knowing there are risks. Because of my activity level they opted for a TVT sling. My surgeon is top notch - specializes in this stuff.
Had surgery and unfortunately part of the sling pushed through my vaginal wall. It made quite a few positions uncomfy, sometimes painful, but I used estrogen creams and we hoped that would coax the skin to close back over. It didn’t.
So 9 months later I had surgery to cover that part that got through but again, it popped through and this time it hurt 90% of the time.
Through this, I can’t have vaginal sex because the mesh hurts my husband’s penis.
My husband made a mean comment the other day along the lines of “if you do anything to postpone sex any longer…”. I have never been so hurt in my life, to be honest. With all I’m dealing with and all he cares about is the sex. It hurts to orgasm so I can’t do anything whereas he has options. It’s not like I’m not struggling, in pain, and regretting ever trying this surgery.
I wish people understood the shame that this all had been. I wish he knew how much I hurt when I sit, walk, bend over. I wish I didn’t spend my life truing to find a bathroom to change a pad, sometimes underwear, and sometimes even pants. I wish I didn’t wash myself ten times per day hoping I don’t smell. I wish I could run, hike, lift weights.
I believe I am depressed. I am so good at disgusting that I think everyone would be surprised. I have dark days where I wonder how come me, how come there isn’t a fix. And I am SO angry that there is so much stigma that I spend so much energy not talking about this and trying to hide it.
Sadly, after both surgeries for about 2 weeks i thought i was cured and then it comes back. I don’t know why and have wondered is it the antibiotics they give full strength during surgery (I always test negative for infection with urine samples but always wonder if I have one as d-Manose has helped off and on for short periods of time) or swelling is helping somehow…but for two weeks I remember what life used to be like and it makes me cry to not be able to keep that.
Sigh. Thanks for reading this far and letting me share. I just don’t know where to turn as now I don’t even believe I can trust or be honest with him (and I still always held back on sharing how bad this really is with him, as I am too embarrassed).