The Neighborhood

Announcing the dreaded return of the hypertonic pelvic floor: incontinence and pain, probably the result of back surgery. I gotta drink less or no coffee and do more kegels. What perceptive morsel of insight can I write about this topic? I am utterly disgusted. Urinating on one's self is an act of degradation, and wholly uncontrollable under these circumstances. It is not enough to soak everything, just enough to send a message that I am revolting. More to the point, I suppose, is that my body is revolting. 'Stop working so hard,' it says. 'Put me to sleep!' Or maybe 'give me some yoga.' Still, when a mini-pad becomes a necessity, and it is reassuring to have 20 pairs of underwear, a gal becomes disheartened.

I am not sure that any other proper human being - like not counting dogs in heat, or gorillas - actually has a hypertonic pelvic floor, except for me. The urogynecologist's office and the physical therapist's office were both strangely empty when I was first diagnosed. Any other female I did see was obviously virginal, pure, and without any unsightly pubic hair to speak of. Not the sorta babe who has painful tightening of the cunt. That would be me, the sexually questionable and gynecologically sordid type who might - in theory only - have an extra nodule inside the vagina from a lousy stitch job after an episiotomy deemed necessary when both babies chose to fly out like criminals. Which obviously, we learn now, they were.

So the plan to reflect meaningfully on this obscure hypertonic not-supersonic-at-all malady remains half-inflated, something like the stretched muscle reaching from the inside of my pelvis to my back. I've nothing clever to say about pissing my bed and cramping up. Okay, one thing: vaginal deliveries are overrated and the unpleasant sequellae go appallingly unreported. My back, my vagina, the whole pelvic neighborhood! Those damn kids.