The misery of mastitis

There is really no other word to describe it other than pure misery.  And I guess I should be honest, it isn't the mastitis itself that is totally miserable, but the high fever that accompanies it.  It all began Monday, but the real cause may have began last week when Emma started sleeping all the way through the night.  I do not blame her for this, but it is certainly one downside to having baby sleep so good.  One that I guess I can live with, as long as my treatment and recovery speed up! :)  Really, I blame myself a little, as I should have done a better job keeping hydrated, which is one way to help prevent it.

Anyway, on Monday I noticed a bit of a lump in my right breast that wasn't going away even after Emma nursed on that side.  By evening I decided I should pump and massage it to see if I could drain it before going the full night sleep without her nursing on it.  So before bed I did just that...pumped and massaged it.  And sadly almost immediately afterward I started to feel those flu-like symptoms.  Yet, I checked my temperature and it was normal, so I just took some ibuprofen and went to bed hoping for the best.  All the while thinking that I'd probably try calling the doctor first thing in the morning when the office opened.

Alas, I did not make it that long.  I woke up at 4am in total misery.  I had chills and shakes and aches like you wouldn't believe.  I took some more ibuprofen and even pumped a bit more.  Hardly anything was coming out.  I was in pain and misery.  I waited another hour until 5am, which seemed like an eternity.  No dice...I was not going to make it until after 8am when the doctor's office opened.  So I decided I was going to the ER, which I had to drive myself so John could stay home with our sleeping kids.  Emma did start to stir right before I left so I nursed her on my right side hoping to alleviate some of the pressure.

By the time I arrived at the ER, I felt very weak on my legs.  As I walked across the parking lot to the door I had thoughts of "what if I collapse just outside the ER due to weakness?"..."do they have cameras on the entrance to watch for that?".  I did make it inside, but they immediately asked me if I wanted a wheelchair and I was in no condition to deny it out of pride or any other reason.  They checked me in at the front desk while I mumbled off the bits and pieces of information they needed to them.  Then the nurse got me right away and took me to my exam room.  When the doctor arrived, almost a few seconds later, they wanted to examine my mastitis, but I was so unwilling to get undressed because I still felt so cold (with terrible chills)!  The doctor informed me that would be because my temperature was well over 102 F!  Yes, I knew something was quite wrong!  (I had actually put an extra layer of pants and shirt on over my pajamas to drive in as it was because I already had feared how cold I'd be getting out from under the bed covers!).

Anyway, they did a quite verification that I had a lump in my breast due to mastitis and thus ordered pain meds, antibiotics, and nausea meds for me.  The nausea meds were because I informed them I was feeling pretty nauseous when I would drink just a few sips of water to take pills (like the ibuprofen an hour or so before).  Then they let me sleep with a warm compress on my chest.  I slept for about an hour when they came back to check on me at the 7am nurse shift change.  Surprisingly I already felt much better (no more chills...hooray!), but I still had a 102.9F fever. :(  That's when they gave me more ibuprofen and suggested I alternate the tylenol and ibuprofen to help keep my fever down and help with the aches and pains.  They also then gave me a different antibiotic, because they admitted the nurse gave me the wrong one initially (I was supposed to get azithromycin and the nurse read it too quickly and gave me amoxycillin...she said she saw the a at the beginning and assumed wrong...maybe not too uncommon close to the end of a 12-hour overnight shift!?).   Then I slept for probably another hour until they checked me again.  At that time my fever had gone down to 101.4, so I was on the mend.  I was also starting to feel the sweats that you get when your fever breaks.

I finally felt well enough to check myself out about another hour later, after I'd gotten a hand pump from the hospital to alleviate my engorgement on my left side (from having not nursed all night long still).  Then I ran by my pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions and got on my way home.  Most of hte rest of Tuesday I felt okay, just really run down. I slept and rested as much as I could, and John did a great job taking care of the kids and me.  However, when I went to bed Tuesday I had reminiscent feelings of the night before...some body aches and such starting to come on.  Regardless, I took some percoset (the good pain meds they gave me) and went to sleep.

I woke up at 6am Wednesday feeling bad again, and turns out I had a 101.4F fever again!   I immediately took more ibuprofen and rested.  By 7am I nursed Emma, called the doctor and got an appointment for 8:20am, since my discharge paperwork from the ER said to be seen by the doctor if my fever came back above 100.5F.   Driving to the doctor after our fresh snow "storm" was a slow drive, but not as bad as for my doctor!  She had to drive in from Ft Collins and was very delayed so I was put into an observation room with a bed so I could rest while I waited for her to get in.  My fever broke during the time I drove into the appointment, so I was again very sweaty, but still very run down.

She did blood work to check my white cell counts and everything looked fine.  She said sometimes the antibiotics take some time to start working.  They didn't put me on a strong antibiotic because I am nursing, so it will take a bit more time.  We decided if I was still having fever by Friday that I should come back in.  I think overall I felt more run down on Wednesday, so I slept most all of the day and once again John was so helpful in taking care of me and the kids.  Thank goodness that by Thursday morning I woke up without a fever and feeling generally better, aside from the lump that had still not really gone down.  However, yesterday I awoke without fever again (yay!), but with terrible nausea and so I felt run down again.  When I saw my doctor on Wednesday I had mentioned I also had a headache and sore throat and so she mentioned I may also be fighting off a virus too.  Sure enough, that sore throat has become more "fuzzy" feeling and so I've been drinking a lot of hot honey and lemon and pushing my fluid intake.  Fighting off something else besides just the mastitis infection is definitely taking a toll on my body!  At least the mastitis lump is slowly getting smaller and less tender.

Overall, I'm just thankful that if this had to happen, that it happened before our trip to Australia and not while we were there (or on the plane going there!).  It certainly did come on fast and strong, and it was nothing to mess with (and certainly screwed up my plans for this past week!).  Some sites say that getting mastitis is a common reason moms wean their babies from being breastfed.  I don't see that as a possibility for me.  For one, I want her to get breastmilk for her whole first year if possible, and secondly, her nursing (and/or me pumping) is the key to helping unblock this duct that started this whole thing in the first place.  However, the misery of the fever that I had was almost more unbearable than the labor of having the baby (I mean I had no energy whatsoever when I had that fever and as I arrived at the ER), so it's not an easy pain to deal with for sure and can be a discouraging aspect of breastfeeding.  With Evan I had mastitis twice, although looking back on both of those episodes I would probably say they were just blocked ducts that were on the verge of getting infected since I didn't ever have the high fever with either instance (perhaps because I also got seen by my doctor sooner, yet the only way I'd have been seen sooner in this case was if I had gone in Monday night before bed, which still would have been an ER visit since it was after hours).  Anyway, my word to the wise is that if you are nursing, have a painful lump form, and start to feel even slightly flu-like (even without fever), go be seen right away.  Don't wait for the misery that is mastitis to get you.