Why did I start Jojo The Pelvic Pro?

To answer this one, I’d like to take you back.. like, a long way back..

When I was young - the kind of young when you dream up all the different people you could become one day - I knew I wanted to be someone who helped and supported others. I’d considered psychology, medicine, various therapies.. and it was ultimately the therapy I spent the most time in, personally, that drew me in. With a medical history including spinal fractures, shoulder subluxations, and various lower extremity injuries placing me on crutches 11 different times between 6th and 10th grade, you could say I was a frequent customer at my hometown Physical Therapy clinic. It was during those appointments that I fell in love with the anatomy and physiology of the human body - our body’s daily functioning is nothing short of miraculous! I was always asking questions and wanting to understand the whys and hows of everything the PTs were doing. While shadowing one summer before college, one of the PTs told me that there are PTs who specialize in tailbone pain - that they can internally mobilize that tiny coccyx bone, relieving excruciating pain limiting people’s ability to sit in a chair. I remember thinking that type of specialty care sounded like it could be truly life changing. 

Years went by - graduating high school, graduating college, working as a PT aide for a year, then starting Physical Therapy school - before that area of specialty care would cross my mind again. As students, we had to choose a topic for our doctoral research projects. I think sometimes people don’t know just how many specialty areas there are within PT - between practice settings (in patient, out patient, home health, acute care, etc) and type of care (neurology, oncology, pediatric, geriatric, sports, orthopedic, pelvic, lymphedema, aquatic, etc), there are a lot of varieties and scope to the PT profession! Settling on one topic for a research project was certainly a process, but one that once again presented a tugging curiosity about how impactful treatment of a tiny little tail bone could be in a person’s overall quality of life. I started reading, and the more I learned the more intrigued I became. Pelvic pain, incontinence, constipation, and a whole slew of pelvic dysfunctions were glaringly rampant problems with seemingly minimal awareness of the help available. It was in realizing this that I finally felt the click of purpose: I knew I was meant to be a PT, but more specifically, I was going to help and support people through pelvic PT. 

I did my research on the barriers limiting women from participation in PT during and after pregnancy - spoiler alert, the biggest barrier was lack of awareness that PT during pregnancy and postpartum recovery was even a thing that existed. I participated in a 4 month training at a pelvic specialty clinic during PT school. I presented my research at a national PT conference and abroad. I settled into my post-graduate career, and continued to go to pelvic specialty classes all over the country on weekends. I would host free educational classes for women to attend on the weekends, and I spread the word about care potential through my patients’ sharing of their experiences with friends and family. I felt like I was helping a lot of women and doing what I was meant to do.

Then…

I was pregnant with my first son, still working in the busy clinic with a consistently packed schedule and 3-month wait list to get in for an evaluation, and then I started bleeding at work. I’ll never forget the fear. My husband and I had been trying for months to get pregnant, we’d finally gotten pregnant, and I was so scared I was losing my baby. I was put on bed rest by my OB until the bleeding stopped, which meant time off work. Even after a couple weeks of bed rest, every time I got up and moved around for more than a few minutes, I’d start contracting. As much as I struggled emotionally with leaving my patients hanging, I realized that I needed to put myself and my baby first this time.

The pandemic started, and I remained on very light duty bed rest for the duration of my pregnancy, which meant months away from the clinic. I lost count how many patients reached out to me to see when I’d start treating again. I felt so torn and guilty.  I knew I was doing the right thing, but I still felt I was letting people down - people that I’d felt I was meant to be helping and supporting. 

My husband was a resident at the time, working long hours at the hospital, and I was at home, alone, for days and days and days… and that’s when it came to me: I can still help people virtually. I created the Jojo The Pelvic Pro Instagram account, and I just started writing. I knew there were lots of women out there who still didn’t know about Pelvic PT.. or that their symptoms were common but not normal.. or that they don’t have to live with their pain and pelvic dysfunction.. or that they can do simple things daily to help and protect their pelvic floor.. there were so many things I could share and teach while lying on the couch safely growing my tiny human. 

I won’t claim that Jojo The Pelvic Pro is the best page ever - there are lots of awesome pelvic PT & pelvic health accounts out there now providing people with wonderful education, tools, exercises, and support. I LOVE it! It's spreading a kind of awareness that we've never had before! I support all those other accounts! My goal has always been and will always be to be a resource for someone out there to stumble across and maybe learn a thing or two that helps them. So regardless whether I’m working in the clinic, at home on bed rest, or on maternity leave, I’m always doing something to help spread the word, share the knowledge, and make someone else’s life even a little better in doing so. 

Welcome to my pelvic pro blog - a space where I can share both pelvic health information AND other life topics.. because if the things I’ve learned along my journey in life could help improve someone else’s life out there, why wouldn’t I want to share that?! 

Have a topic you’d like me to write about? Let me know!