‘Simple surgery ruined my life’

“I’d wet myself and it had soaked right through the pad I’d been wearing. I was only 33, but I felt like a granny. I even had to ask a colleague to buy me some new tights, although I was too embarrassed to tell her why.” Following her humiliating incident at work, Cat - who also has a daughter, Tash, 21, from a previous relationship – saw her GP. He referred her to a gynaecologist at Calderdale Royal Hospital, part of Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust. Cat, who was planning to study for a PhD, was told she had stress incontinence and had a minor prolapse, which was affecting her bladder control. She said: “I was fine when I had Tash, but with Charlie, I lost count of the times I wet myself when I was pregnant. “Afterwards, though, it got worse and worse. Wetting myself at work was the final straw.” When she was offered vaginal mesh surgery – a net-like implant used to treat pelvic organ prolapse and incontinence after childbirth – she jumped at the chance. She recalled: “I was told it was a 20-minute procedure and, if it ended the misery of incontinence, it would transform my life. The surgery was scheduled for December 2, 2009 at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary – two weeks after her wedding to Gordon, at Todmorden Town Hall, near their Hebden Bridge home. She said: “Gordon and I had known each other for 22 years and he’d pro-

I can’t play with Charlie like other mums and I don’t feel much like a wife either.