Hi everyone, it’s been awhile since I have posted and I’m back to share my first Chapter of the Trials of Motherhood 
Around the holidays I noticed a small, hard lump in my right breast, and chalked it up to being a plugged milk duct. I told myself I’d call the Doctor if it didn’t go away in a week or two, meanwhile I read and tried everything under the sun to get it unclogged.
Two weeks later there was no change and I noticed that the lump had gotten a little bigger, time to talk to the Doctor! The Doctor examined me and said she definitely thought the lump was brought on by nursing and she would like to have me get an ultrasound just to be sure there was nothing to be worried about.
I set up the ultrasound for the following week. Between the day my Doctor examined me and the day of the ultrasound things started progressively getting worse for me, the lump tripled in size and started to get red. It was also starting to get very painful as well.
I called my Doc again the morning of the day I was to get my ultrasound done, and they rushed me in to examine me once more and said it looked like a definite infection, they sent me on my way to get my ultrasound done with some antibiotics and said they’d be in touch depending on what the results of the sonogram looked like.
The ultrasound showed that there was an abscess, the tech sent in the Doctor to speak to me and she urged me to get seen by a surgeon as she felt that the abscess might be too big for the antibiotics to do the trick. She said she’d be in touch with my OB/GYN and they’d be in touch with me and to give me a name of surgeon I could call. On my way home from the Medical Imaging place I got a call from my OB’s office and they gave me the name and number of a surgeon and I gave him a call right away. He told me to come in right away and he suggested that I get the abscess drained first thing the next day.
The pain got much more severe just from the time I saw the surgeon to the next morning. I ended up calling the surgeon at 4 a.m. that morning in tears begging him to let me take something for the pain (nothing to eat or drink from midnight to surgery due to the anesthesia) and he said I could take some Tylenol which really did not help much but took the edge off a little so I could try to get some sleep.
Needless to say by the next morning I was in agony. All I could do was cry. The very kind hospital staff rushed to get me a bed asap, so I could get pain medication via IV. The pain was so bad that whatever they were giving me for the pain was not working. After three attempts at upping the dosage they finally gave me Valium, and finally I got some much needed relief.
When I woke up I was in recovery (I do not remember being wheeled down to the OR at all!) and feeling much, much better. The only downside is that I am no longer able to nurse Madeline, which was very disappointing, but necessary in order for me to heal properly.
I would like to give my Dad special thanks for taking me to the hospital that day, for holding my hand and wiping away my tears and staying calm for me, I couldn’t have asked for better support! I love you Dad. You’re the best
Maddie and I are both doing fine and she’s adjusted just fine to her “bottle time”. Here’s to hoping that the next time I post it will about happier moments!
