Friend had surgery

Dear Grandma Joy

It sounds like you acted very ethically when you encouraged your beautician to try natural prolapse management before surgery. It sounds like somebody else marketed their solution better than you, and got the sale.

What is is about humans that we will often buy an expensive product, thinking it will be a better product, regardless of the risk of product failure and the non-saleability of the result? I think it is because we think of life as a consumer experience, comparing options as if they are equivalent alternatives to each other.

After unsatisfactory surgery you can't exactly go down to the swapmeet and sell your ailing body cheaply, then go down to the Department store the following week and buy a new one! <:-o

My guess is that the gyno who sold your beautician the surgery was trained in marketing the surgery by the owners of the 'intellectual property called the surgical technique used', and of course the 'surgical hardware and consumables used in the surgery'.

What hope do ordinary women with a knowledge of their bodies have competing against that sort of marketing dollar$?

Now I'm getting a bit angry about all this. >>:-x

I believe that we need to enable women to see their bodies as something other than receptacles and clothes horses for consumer products. They are amazing, sacred and worth going to some trouble for.

We need to make women see that having pelvic reconstructive surgery is like going through a door that only has a handle on the outside. There is a sign on the door that says

"This door may lead you to an improvement in your prolapse for an unspecified time.
The door will slam shut behind you once you have entered.
You cannot go back to where you came from.
Your body is damaged and broken.
Your body does not need this surgery; your gynaecologist needs the income.
Surgery is foolproof contraception.
The surgical procedure will probably only require a couple of days in hospital, but will require drugs for some time afterwards to deal with the pain.
Your body will change in ways you have not before experienced.
Your body will possibly feel better for the first few months or even longer, but some time after that it will probably develop prolapse again, possibly worse...
You will never again be able to lift heavy weights.
You may have to go through this door several more times during your life.
Going through this door is also fraught with risks.
You may never be able to pass urine spontaneously again.
Your prolapse may recur.
You may develop more prolapses.
You may experience pain during sex, or worse pain if it is already painful.
You may cease to be interested in sex.
You may lose the ability to be sexually aroused.
You may experience pain all the time for the rest of your life, necessitating a lifetime of medication to get you through the day.
It may not give you the improvement in your body that you are expecting.
You can never go back and try a different door..."

The writing on the door from here on is illegible, but it appears to be describing more risks, but you can't tell what they are.

However, there is a second door beside it. This second door has handles on both inside and out. On it is written

"Many women have found that this doorway enables them to live quite happily with their prolapses.
Your body may have been damaged, but it has an amazing ability to recover.
Your gynaecologist is a very smart person. He/she will have no difficulty in making money by another means.
Your pelvic organs are now positioned differently, so you now need to carry and look after your body consciously in order to remain symptom free.
It is not known how long the improvement of symptoms will last.
It is not proven that the prolapses will worsen at all.
If you don't like it behind this door, you can go back and try the surgical door.
The techniques can be learned in a few minutes, and require no drugs.
You will need to commit some time each day to exercising your body (which you should be doing anyway!)
You will still need to use contraception.
You can still have babies!
You should be able to lift heavy weights again afterwards, but using different body positions to do it.
You will probably never need surgery.
Control of your bladder will probably improve.
There is no proof that your prolapses will worsen.
If sex is painless now, going through this door will not cause you to experience pain.
If you currently enjoy sex, you will still enjoy it.
You will still have all your sexual equipment and natural hormones.
You may experience less discomfort during menstruation.
If you have no everyday pain now, going through this door will not cause you pain.
If you do experience everyday pain now, you may gradually experience less pain as time goes on.
Many women can tell you about the continued improvements they have experienced.
You will grow to appreciated the sacredness and wholeness of your body.
You will grow to feel better about your body, and will probably see no need to 'reconstruct it' because it was never broken in the first place.

Beyond this the writing in illegible.

WHICH DOOR WOULD YOU CHOOSE??

The two doors are not equivalent alternatives!!

They cannot be compared!!

We owe it to women who are considering surgery to tell them the story like it is in reality, and allow them to choose.
Be prepared to debate it with them.
Be prepared to get them to put surgery off for a little while and try the alternatives.
Be prepared to tell them our own story, even if it is only a few months experience with the natural alternatives.
Be prepared to request that the public library system purchase copies of Christine's book and DVD.
Be prepared to email the Wholewoman URL to all women we know and include a positive review of the book and DVD.
Be prepared to email the Wholewoman URL to general practitioners and women's health centres with positive reviews of the book and DVD.
Be prepared to donate copies to local women's groups and community health workers or strongly recommend that they purchase it as a community resource.
Be prepared to 'come out' and talk to other women about prolapse, and how you have improved your own.
Be prepared to be held up in the street with women crying on your shoulder about their surgical regrets.
Be prepared to encourage them, and say it is never too late to start with alternative methods of managing prolapse.

Do so with an attitude of thanksgiving and generosity.

I'll leave it at that, and see how you all respond.

Cheers

Louise

Louise, this is wonderful...can I post it somewhere more prominent on the new site? The only thing else I thought of with the first door are the women who've walked through it and are so messed up emotionally and psychically that they have to deny the horror of their reality AND encourage other women to walk through that door!! In my book I say it's Mythic in proportion and so it is...really the stuff of fairy tales in depth and scope of personal, family, and societal impact.

One more thing. I

Christine, did you just make one comment on that site? I tried to see all your posts under Moonspinner(I saw one) but when I search it comes up with no posts. No even the post I knew was there. Funny, this doesn't happen with other names.

Keep up the good work educating women about alternatives. I can't thank you enough for all the good you've done!

I've responded in other threads, but can't find them either. Nothing we haven't talked about here, so I'm sure you're not missing anything if you can't find them. :-)

Sure Christine, post it on the site. I wonder if it would be possible to allow others to add to the imagery first? I am sure I am not the only person out there enraged by the ease with which women submit to the scalpel. Have you read Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385423977/002-7004416-8022416?v=glance&n=283155 ?

I picked my copy up for the first time in about nine years the other day, and realised how much my ways of thinking have been affected by books I have read over time.

I would think that more women's input would be good. Others may come up with more 'palatable' ideas. This is not a pretty picture I have painted. I wouldn't want women to be put off reading to the end.

Cheers

Louise

oh, i am so bummed that i couldn't find your threads under the "moonspinner" thread either! i would hope that all gyns and urogyns don't encourage surgery as the first option. now, i really do want to keep all my parts as long as possible. i know that my gyn poo pooed the pessary when i brought it up too. but i think once you have surgery you still have to be careful too. our bodies will never be like pre-prolapse with or without surgery. but it is nice to maintain the natural hormones from our precious organs. keeps us somewhat sane! :)

Dear Christine

pelvicfloor.com is a bit scary after your site.

Yes, I very much agree that gyno$ have a lot to lo$e if women $topped pre$enting for $urgery.
However, their training does lead them in the direction of offering surgery as a first option. If their training does not include awareness of physical therapies, posture changes, diet and bowel health etc, then ignorance is also a big issue.

How do we market these alternatives to the trainers and providers of ongoing professional development for gynos? How do we get them to acknowledge that there is no path back through the woods after post-surgery problems develop? How do we get them to face up to the fact that women who do experience problems as a result of surgery have to live with those same bodies 24/7 for the rest of their lives?

Positive research results in peer-reviewed scientific journals would probably help. How to get the research funded is another question.

Female gynaecologists with early prolapse or problems after vaginal childbirth need to start learning these techniques as women.

And women who influence gynaecologists, socially, professionally, personally, Or are they all stitched up already?

I have a feeling that there are lots of good gynos out there who are fully aware of the 'two-edged sword' nature of pelvic reconstruction surgery, and who truly wish there were proven alternatives to surgery. Finding them and getting them to do the research would be a worthwhile challenge. I have an inherent faith in human nature that leads me to say this, in spite of the fact that we do not here from these gynos very often.

Cheers

Louise

I need to talk to my web developer, but I think there might be a way we could post it on a special page (not in the forum where it would get lost) that would allow women to add to it indefinitely!! How cool would that be - sort of like an unending quilt!

I didn't read that Wolf book (I read Misconceptions), but have read many others like it. What's happening in women's healthcare is pretty dismal - the birth scene and prolapse wars being ground zero - and bound to get a lot more intense.