In 2015, Kath Sansom was the “ridiculously superfit mother of two adult daughters”. She did high-board diving, mountain biking, swimming and boxing. She had started to have a few “embarrassing leaks” while exercising, so Sansom did what many women do in her situation: she went to her GP, who referred her for transvaginal tape surgery, in which a small piece of mesh is fitted around the urethra to prevent incontinence.
“I assumed it was a bit like a coil,” says Sansom, 54, a PR manager from Cambridgeshire, “and if I didn’t get on with it, I could have it taken out. I had no idea it was permanent.”
