Cancer AND mastitis???

While waiting for surgery, most cancer patients would be anxious and nervous of the upcoming event. I had little time to think about it. My focus was on Tyson and how strongly I felt about nursing him.

I became very ill with mastitis when Tyson was only 2 weeks old.... and exactly 1 week after finding out I had cancer. I was constantly sick over the next 5 weeks. For those of you who are familiar with this, you know that its an excruciating pain. For those of you who don't, allow me to explain.

Mastitis is a term used to describe breast inflammation, most common in nursing mothers. It can be caused by inflammation of cellular tissue, or formation of an abscess. In other words, it hurts like hell!

I was laying in bed with a fever of up to 103*, when I finally decided I needed to call my doctor. I had no idea something like this even existed. He knew right away what it was and prescribed some antibiotics as well as some home remedies. I started with the home remedies. I sent Paul to the store to buy bag balm and cabbage. I looked like a walking garden! The bag balm was used to heal any open cracks or wounds on the breast and the cabbage has some mystical power that's able to draw out the infection. I used those religiously as well as hot showers and the antibiotics to try and get rid of this. By now, I had a huge welt on the side of my breast that was almost the size of a baseball (I kid you not). And yes, I was dealing with this while going to my doctor appointments for cancer.

I kept trying to nurse. Every day felt like a burning fire in my chest. The pain was so bad that I cringed every time I knew Tyson was hungry, and he wanted to eat every 2 hours (he's now nicknamed The Tank). I would be in tears for hours from hurting so bad. After 4 weeks of this I went back to my doctor.

As soon as he examined the baseball growing out of my breast he immediately sent me to a local general surgeon. Seriously? Surgery?

I was awake for the entire procedure. The surgeon had to "drain" the infection. If you can imagine a needle the size of a pencil being jabbed into this "baseball" on the side of my breast.... ya... it was bad. He made a 2 inch incision on the baseball (my first vampire bite). I thought I was going to pass out, in fact, I almost did. I told him he had to stop otherwise I wasn't going to make it. He continued after about 10 minutes when some color came back into my face. He finished up and explained that he put a "shoe lace" down inside my breast. Okay, so it wasn't a "real" shoe lace, but that's what it looked like and reminded me of. He actually called it a "wick". This had to stay inside my breast for the next 4 days so the infection could continue to drain.

This procedure was a necessary evil. My breast continued to drain, I was on narcotics (okay, pain medicine) for the pain and was STILL trying to nurse. The next day the one breast that I could nurse on started showing the same signs as the one with mastitis. That's when I knew I couldn't go on with nursing any longer. I was so heartbroken and upset about my decision, but knew I just couldn't do it. I didn't give up, I fought and fought for this, but just wasn't able to.

A week after this procedure was done, and the shoe lace coming out, Tyson was 7 weeks and I was back working at my job.

My job was extremely supportive... knowing that I was going to be on medical leave again very soon.


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