At my 6 weeks postpartum check up, I was happy to hear from my doctor that everything was healing as it was supposed to and that the only thing I was dealing with was a minor case of mastitis - a bacterial infection that comes from breastfeeding when a duct gets clogged and creates a lump and redness on the skin. My doctor prescribed some antibiotics for me and it started to go away. Many of my friends also had gotten mastitis from nursing and had also had a fever/flu symptoms, which are common symptoms of mastitis. I was thankful I had avoided the fever and flu symptoms as it seemed I had caught it early enough. I had no idea that in the next few weeks, the end result of the mastitis would be having minor surgery on my breast. Since I'm comfortable talking about it and my way of processing the whole ordeal is to write about it, I assume you're comfortable with it to if you're still reading :).
After I stopped taking the first antibiotic I was prescribed for the infection, the lump from the clogged duct came back bigger and my skin became more tender and red so my doctor prescribed me a second antibiotic. Again, the lump went away while on the antibiotics and then got worse after I stopped taking them. My doctor then decided to aspirate the lump - meaning she numbed the area and then stuck a crazy thick needle into the lump and extracted a lot of the puss that was making up the lump. She sent it out to be cultured, got the results back, and prescribed a third antibiotic that she thought would be more aggressive in treating the infection. After a few days on the new antibiotic, the lump got bigger, my skin got more red, and the pain became unbearable. I went back to the doctor and was referred to a breast surgeon at Overlake hospital the next day. At the surgeon's office, they aspirated the lump again and told me to watch it closely over the next few days.
The next morning we were supposed to head to Ephrata to visit Cody's family but our trip was postponed when I woke up early with a fever and flu symptoms. We called the doctor and I was told to come in to make sure everything was okay. By the time I saw the doctor mid morning, my fever had gone away and I was feeling much better. The doctor checked me out and noticed that it seemed like the lump was starting to get smaller and the redness was starting to go away so we were optimistic the infection was healing. We headed home and were hanging out a few hours later when I looked down and noticed that on top of the lump, quite a bit of puss had pooled under the skin and it looked like it was about ready to rupture. I had been warned that this could be bad as it's not a controlled drain if it does rupture. So we called the breast surgeon at Overlake and he happened to be doing paperwork in his office and told us to come in immediately. He looked at it and told me he would need to cut it open to prevent it from rupturing and gave me the choice of being sedated and doing the procedure in the OR or having local anesthetic and having him do it right then. I would have had to wait about four hours if I chose to be sedated (so no food was in my system), so I chose the local anesthetic and he basically made an incision, cut deep into the duct, and got most of the puss out. It's a pretty deep open wound that has to drain so I now have gauze and tape over it. It hurts like crazy every time the incision has to be redressed (twice a day). He said there will be a scar, so even though it seems petty, I'm pretty bummed about it. The bizarre thing is that the surgeon said he sees only about two of these cases a year - talk about worst case scenario.
I don't want to seem like I'm complaining as I know things could have been way worse and I'm thankful that we caught it when we did. I am so thankful that God was watching over us that day as my fever postponed us from going to Ephrata and having this whole thing happen while we were away. I'm thankful that the surgeon happened to be in his office (on a weekend) and could see us right away. I'm thankful that Ella slept peacefully during the procedure and didn't make a peep. I'm thankful that I have an amazing husband who was able to be with me and take care of me as I heal. For those of you who know me well, I have always had a phobia of anything to do with needles/blood/hospitals, so I'm thankful that I was stronger than I thought and did fine while being awake through the whole thing.
The surgeon put it into perspective for me (after I burst into tears when he told me he would need to cut it open) when he told me that he's seen women for their six week postpartum checkup and noticed a lump in their breast only to find out it's cancer. I'm so thankful for the health of my family and that if this is the worst thing that could happen, I can deal with it. It seems like all the new moms I know have had some sort of battle wound, or love wound as one of my friends put it, that comes with being a mom. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world when I look at my sweet little girl and know it's all worth it :). Thank you to so many of you for your healing thoughts and prayers!
