Yes, yes. It is another post about my Frankentaint. So feel free to click away, if you’d like. In fact, click here. It’s a post about my Mutt Bowl that doesn’t actually mention the word “Frankentaint” anywhere near it. Hell, it’s damn near philosophical. Plus, we need readers over there. So go on, clicky.

‘Fraidy cats.

So, it’s the one year anniversary of my brand-new Mutt Bowl, and the resulting Frankentaint. And as such, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about it all. It’s been a long year. I can’t really remember what all I told you all about it, but I have had a year now to think about it. I just keep thinking about me, two years ago, upset and alone with the problems I was having. Maybe some woman who’s having the same problem right now will find my blog, and know she’s not alone. I don’t want her to feel like I did– powerless, ashamed, unattractive, and irretrievably broken.

So I’m going to tell you everything. Allow myself to interview… myself.

Q: How did this happen? I mean, what started it? I sustained a 4th degree tear giving birth to Noise. As is the practice in most hospitals, I was stitched up in the birthing room by the attending OB. I was never referred to or seen by any specialist regarding matters of the colorectal area. At no point in my recovery from childbirth did anyone ask about or check the healing of the “new butthole” my son had created. As such, since the pain eventually faded, I assumed I was healed completely.

Q: But you weren’t healed? It’s hard to say. When Noise was one year old, I became pregnant with Funk. As my pregnancy progressed, I began to show some symptoms that might suggest that my repair was not “complete.” However, as you might be aware, the hormones that your body makes during pregnancy relax some of your muscles and joints.– so it’s possible that I became symptomatic during this time because there were twenty pounds of baby blubber pushing on my colon.

Q: What do you mean “symptomatic?” Brace yourselves, readers. In the interest of helping any woman who has undergone this experience, I’m going to be completely honest. When I say I became symptomatic, I mean I had poop issues. Specifically, “urgency issues.” Specifically, I once had to drop trow on the side of Highway 70 to take a crap because we were stuck in traffic and I couldn’t wait until we got to the restroom. Specifically, I once darted across four lanes of traffic to relieve myself in a Bob Evans restroom. I assumed that I was having this problem because I was pregnant. And the more heavily pregnant I became, the worse it got.

Q: And then? It didn’t go away after Funk was born. In fact, it got worse. I avoided social situations that were outside or away from restrooms for fear that I would crap my pants. In fact, for all of my happiness about my life changes at the time, all three of these events involved tears on my part because I was afraid at some point I would soil myself. I was 32. I was too young to be shitting myself. I was depressed and angry, and finally, in August of 2007, I decided that the issue was not going to resolve itself. So I went to my regular physician and told her the whole embarrassing story. I cried the whole time.

Q: What did your doctor do? Well, the pooping thing was only one of the many problems I was having at the time. I was still lactating 6 months after nursing. I had some girly-bit issues. So, she sent me out to several different specialists. The colorectal surgeon was the last doctor on my list, and I saw him in September. Eventually, we decided that I should have surgery. It’s hard to say whether I was ever “right” after Noise tore me a new one, or if Funk re-injured my Frankentaint, but when the good doc “examined” the area, my sphincter (which is supposed to be like an “O”) was definitely a “U.” This is a problem. Imagine that you have a garden hose, and you want to kink that hose to get the water to stop. Now imagine that top half of the hose would never kink. Think about how hard it would be to stop the water. That’s what it was like for me to hold back my poop.

At that time, the colorectal surgeon never told me what the chances of my surgery being successful might be. And I was so tired of almost crapping myself, and the anxiety of worrying about crapping myself, that I never even asked.

Q: What exactly was your surgery? The official name for the surgery I had is an overlapping  sphincteroplasty (here is an EXTEREMELY GRAPHIC LINK of what is done.) I had some other things done, too, which we hadn’t planned on. See, when the doc stuck his digit up there, he could tell easily that my muscle was not connected to itself. But he had no idea that once he got in there, he would discover that most of the tissue leading up to the rectum was full of scar tissue. Scar tissue continues to grow with constant access to a blood supply and stretching– something that goes on a lot in your butthole, if I might be crude. So, the scars were continuing to grow and expand, diminishing my muscle control over time. Had I not had the surgery, there’s a good chance that my “U” would have become pretty useless. I was trying to think of a letter it would look like. But there’s no letter that wide. The colorectal surgeon had to remove that scar tissue so that I could heal properly.

Q: Your recovery was really, really long. Why? Well, for one, the surgery was more extensive than we’d planned. The repair went much farther up my business than just my rectum. During the surgery, to have access to the areas he needed to reach, my doctor made an incision that spanned pretty much the entire length of my perineum. (Yowsa!) And, because the rectum is a “dirty site,” it couldn’t be closed– you might get fecal matter inside the site, and that would be debilitating. So while he made some stitches to close some things internally, and to repair the sphincter, the incision for the surgery was left completely open (this link is not a picture, I promise.) My doctor told me this is what he would do prior to the surgery, but I don’t think I had wrapped my head around what “leave the incision open” would mean. He meant open. Like, oh my god, my taint is a horror show open. I still have nightmares about being ripped apart at the legs.

Because I had to heal my incision from the inside out, recovery was extremely slow. I could not sit for three weeks, because beneath me was this gaping wound. It hurt to walk, because your legs are a lever, and the fulcrum is your– TAINT. It hurt to cough, laugh, change positions, or sneeze… because amazingly you use your ass for a lot of stuff. It was, hands down, one of the hardest times of my life. Also the closest I ever came to being addicted to narcotic medicines.

Q: If you had it to do over, would you? A year out, I would say that yes, I would probably have the surgery again, but I would do it differently. I didn’t ask enough questions, and I didn’t see enough doctors. My doctor was an ass (pardon the pun) and I was both intimidated and insulted by him. I think my level of desperation led me to be a meeker patient than I should have been. My colorectal surgeon never told me that the chances of my surgery being a success over the long term were only 50%. And I never asked him what my expected outcome would be until he had already cut me open. I should have insisted a better doctor. I should have discussed more options. But I’m pretty sure the end result would have been the same surgery, and the doctor I had was reputed to be one of the best in the area. (I mean the Midwest, not the ass area.)

Q: So your symptoms are….? Mostly gone. I have to be really aware of what I eat, and when I pooped last, or if I am going to be away from a bathroom for a long amount of time. It’s still difficult to control things when I’m… uh… loose. So I have to take Imodium immediately any time it seems like things are headed in that direction. If I know I’m going to be away from a bathroom, I’ll take Imodium pre-emptively so that it’s not going to be a problem. It’s a delicate balance– because if I get too constipated, a common side effect of this is: incontinence! So, I need to be aware of it at all times. This whole post is pretty gross, but hey, in for a penny, in for a pound, right? The one thing that’s hard about life post-surgery is that when I have to poop, it all has to come out. Back in the good old pre-pregnancy rectum days, I could hold back a poop or pinch it off mid-loaf whenever I needed to. But those days are no more. I’m not done until I’m done, and no amount of rushing things will change it. It used to take me less than a minute to poop. It takes me a whole Time article now.

Q: What are your long-term prospects like? It’s likely that as I age, the strength and tightness of my new muscle will relax. I am sorry to say, but this actually happens to us all with time. It will be sooner for me than for you, probably, but this surgery probably bought me years of continence I wouldn’t have otherwise had. It’s true that I think more about my BM’s than most 30 year olds, and that won’t probably change. But it’s better than it was, and my quality of life has improved significantly. From what I have read about this surgery, I am experiencing the best case scenario. For that, I am grateful. But I’m also angry that a problem that affects so many women (nearly one third in the months after childbirth) is still without a more effective repair. I guarantee you that if men were walking around shitting themselves at the rate that post-natal women are, there would be a more effective repair.

Q: What about the twenty pounds of baby blubber that are pushing on your surgery site NOW? It remains to be seen. At 22 weeks, I am already experiencing some pain and pressure on the Frankentaint, but nothing terrible. I knew that there was a chance I could injure my repair by having another child, and maybe it was irresponsible of me to go ahead anyway. However, I belong to an online support group of women who have had this surgery, and many of them have gone on to have more children. There is no data to suggest that carrying a child will increase the chances that my surgery will fail, so long as the baby is not born vaginally. So, a C-section for me.

So that’s it. The post that was 366 days in the making (it’s a leap year.) If you know of someone who is going through this, or if you are going through this, please don’t be afraid to get the help you need. I hated having to talk to a stranger about my fecal habits, my rectum, and my incontinence. It was debasing, and a constant walk in humiliation. But there is help out there, and while I definitely can’t promise that it’s going to be easy, life on the other side is better, and worth the pain and embarrassment.