“I’m the kind of person who tries to make the best out of a bad situation,” says Susan, a Virginia Women’s Center patient living in Healthsville. That’s why, despite urging from her primary care physician and her gynecologist, Susan couldn’t bring herself to take the next step to relieve unrelenting incontinence. Not even after “the wedding.”

She explained, “My husband and I were traveling out of town to a wedding. We were in bumper to bumper traffic and, of course, I had to go so bad. And then I sneezed.” Susan had been wearing a silky sundress. Thankfully the accident didn’t come through, but she was uncomfortable in wet underwear.

“My husband pulled off at the next rest stop and I washed my panties out. So that they would dry by the time we got to the wedding, I hung them out the window for the rest of the trip,” she says mustering a laugh.

Susan was first told in 2003 at age 50 to seek help for the symptoms associated with both stress and urge incontinence. Yet it seemed easier to continue “making the best of it.”

She admits that it was probably vanity that sealed the deal. “We were planning to take our baby grand-daughter out on the boat, and it occurred to me: Only one of us is going to look cute in a diaper. Finally I called the doctor’s office.”

“Getting an appointment with Dr. Green was easy, and they worked around my schedule,” Susan noted. “When you live in the Northern Neck, you expect to travel for things like this.” She and her husband just made a day of it.

Three visits usually precede the procedure for a synthetic sling that acts like a hammock to support the urethra, the tube that carries urine from the bladder. After a thorough evaluation, Dr. Green was able to combine what’s done in the second and third visits to save Susan one trip. So, her next visit to Richmond was to the hospital for the outpatient surgery.

Of the surgery, Susan said, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.” Of the result she said, “Wonderful. The first time I sneezed, I didn’t have to cross my legs – but I did it anyway out of habit.”

Susan was initially concerned about going under general anesthesia. Dr. Green was able to calm her fears. She admits to some discomfort just after the surgery, which took place on a Friday. But says, “I was back to work on Monday, and didn’t have to wear a pad.”

Likewise her baby grand-daughter was the only one in diapers on the boat.