Thursday, March 18, 2010

not for the weak at heart

Between working like crazy, fighting off sickness, and dragging myself through the day after multiple nights of little-to-no sleep, I have somehow managed to ignore a medical issue long enough to cause myself an intense amount of pain and grief.

What I am about to get into may fall into the category of "too much information" (or TMI as the kiddies would say), but the story is just too funny and bone chilling to pass up retelling.

It all started about a week ago when I noticed a small twinge of pain in my left boob (nipple to be exact) as I was breast feeding. As the week went on the pain became more frequent and was even occurring during non-breast feeding times of the day.

When the weekend hit, I was in full-on boobie pain mode. Even wearing a bra was making my nipple feel as though someone was holding a flame to it. By Sunday I noticed that my left nipple has swollen to at least 2 times the size of my right one! Just one glance at that spectacle and my jaw just dropped straight to the floor!

Monday was spent heading straight to my doctor (I wasn't wasting anymore time)...who informed me that it was just a bad case of thrush and sent me home with a pill to swallow and some nipple rub.

As the week went on, the pain not only persisted, but also intensified. I didn't even want to wear a bra. Slowly a large bubble started to form on my nipple (WHAT THE FRICK!). I was in so much pain that I cringed every time I even moved my arm. Finally, today I decided that the doctor's original diagnosis HAD to be incorrect (my nipple had now swollen to about 3 times the size of my other nipple AND was oozing)...so I headed right back in.

I waited somewhat impatiently for the doctor, carefully holding the ever fashionable paper hospital gown as far away from my throbbing nipple as possible. Every insane nipple scenario I could imagine ran through my head...what if I let the infection go too long and now it is seeping into my other organs?...what if the doctor comes in and has to cut my nipple open?...what if he has to inject my nipple with something to kill the infection and use a ginormous needle to do so?

No matter what I was thinking, I knew he was going to come in and squeeze it...which made my heart palpitate and my arm pits perspire.

When the doctor arrived he took one look at my nipple, made some comment about it not being what he originally thought (DUH), and quickly went in for the squeeze. Pain shot right from my nipple all the way to the top of head and down to my toes (that bastard moved so quickly I barely had time to ninja chop his hand away!).

I looked down and realized that my poor nipple was left battered and bloody, but starting to be relieved from this necessary evil. Before I even had time to take a breath in the doctor went in for one more squeeze! I shut my eyes and stomped my foot, but took it like a real woman (I really almost started to cry). I swear my nipple was going to pop, but luckily it was ok.

The doctor then sent me on my way with a healthy prescription for some antibiotics, a suggestion to continue the squeeze method at home, and what looked like a large HOLE in the area of my nipple that was relieved from the squeezing.

Needless to say, this has been a sore, painful, and UNCOMFORTABLE week. Hopefully I won't have to endure much more excruciating nipple squeezing before things go back to normal.

1 comment:

  1. so was it a cyst or something? kind of sounds like it. About the pain, girl you popped Dylan out with no pain meds, all natural. You can handle some nipple squeeze! Glad you have some relief. I tried calling yesterday to check on the nipple btw. Have a good day!

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