Forgive my naiveness, but how do you get a new anus? Isn’t it just skin? Did she get a new sphincter too? Or is sphincter the same as a rectum is the same as anus?
If I'm not mistaken, the anus is, technically speaking, the opening, so I'm not sure how the new one might be any different than the old one...kind of like, "How much dirt is in a hole that measures 2' x 2' x 2'?"
>> Forgive my naiveness, but how do you get a new anus? <<
I think the same way you can buy donut holes.
The first question is why the operator did not stick his finger in her rectum and feel "tone". Ususally with rectal incontinence there is essentially no tone to the 'feel' on digital exam. It is true that if she had a spinal or epidural or a paralytic agent this exam may not be informative.
The way you reconstruct new "anus" is to access and mobilize the muscle (anal sphinctor) and sew the ends together (Theirsch Operation). This is done mostly after the anus is torn at childbirth. A perineorraphy is another method for chronicity of the anterior asoect if the anus. There are several other designed proceedures.
For exatremely difficult problems there is a very difficult proceedure where the gracilis muscle is mobilized from the posterior aspect of the leg, preserving blood supply and innervation, and 'threaded in the region where the anus was located. This proceedure is for loss of the rectum, usually due to cancer or radiation injury to the rectum.
I suspect this woman had a problem which went unrecognized after childbirth, and had a Theirsch or perhaps a sphinctorrhaphy of some type. We cannot know from the information presented.
What we can determine is that she now will own the doctor and hospital.
So many questions........