A Glimmer

Never in my life have I seen such dark, hard days. I always read about them on others peoples blogs and my heart always went out to them...but, for the most part, things on this end always seemed to stay somewhat peachy. {and, I hate the word peachy} I'm afraid I have a few more dark days ahead - but I am oh so thankful for the little glimmers of Hope along the way. Today is one such glimmer.

And, if you are a man... might not wanna read on. ;) Jus' sayin'!

First, let me catch you up on whats been going on since last post. I didn't make it to day 3 before calling my OB back up on the phone. The pain was still severe and it didn't make sense to me to keep waiting. I had visions of "what ifs" every minute of the day. "what if I have a disease now?" or "what if they have to remove my breast!?". I know... dumb. I blame my pain level for messing with my brain operation. Anyway, it took an ENTIRE day for the OB office to return my call, which at that point I was {of course} in the shower. So hubs answered and they told him I need to get into the ER asap. Lovely. Of course I became a puddle of tears again. I tried to recall my memorized scripture verses for strength and truth and the only one I could pull up in my distress was, "I will bless the Lord at all times..." which is strange because my heart felt so very far from blessing anyone. There, that's honest. But what a timely reminder that even in those moments of panic we MUST focus on God and on truth. If I am learning anything through all of this - it is that.

Anyway, after I pulled myself together we called a friend to come and sit with Ava while we took August with us to the ER. I wasn't sure what to expect and they gave NO details on what we would face - only that we were on our way to see a surgeon. I'm still nursing wonderfully on one side so August needed to stay with me... HOW would we pull this off?! We got there and they put us right through, even ahead of other people. A resident checked me out and did an initial ultrasound on my breast. Let me tell you - ultrasounds on anything other then growing babies are not as fun. She had to push and prod to see what was going on... and she saw nothing. The surgeon joined us a few minutes later (while I was attempting to nurse in the ER triage room) and I was relieved to know right away how kind and understanding he was. I was impressed for the first time! He did another inspection and said right away he knew it was an abcess in the breast. His guess was my initial "damage" to the nipple from nursing created a bacterial infection which led to a staph infection and a complete blockage. Ouch! This explained why things continued to swell - the antibiotics couldn't touch the infection now due to... infection building up in pus form. EW! Is this TMI?!

He wanted to attempt an aspiration of the abcess to see if just using a needle and suction they could remove the infection. Three large needles and viles later - I was able to see with my eyes just what they removed. I won't even go there with description. Just know - def NOT something you see everyday or ever. The pain was horrible. He didn't want to use an anesthesia so I had the needle stuck in 3 times in a row to be aspirated with no numbing or drugs. I'd like to say I'm kinda getting used to this no drug method of medicine...but, I won't yet. My husband reminded me, "well, you always say you'd like to live in the pioneer times, here ya go!". Isn't he cute? Bah!

So after the needle and squeezing and pain and blood and infected pus - I was bandaged up and sent home in one piece. The surgeon wants me to come back in on Monday for a check up and if he deems it necessary more aspirating or, if its worse, I'll need a complete incision and drainage of the abcess. Clearly you know which I'd prefer. I'm still on antibiotics and lots of ibuprofen.

So what are my "glimmers"?
- I'm still able to nurse on 1 side!
- This morning I was able to produce several drops of milk on the left side. It's been days since I've been able to pump out anything and my deepest sadness right now is that I'll lose my milk and not be able to nurse at all on that side anymore. That could still happen...but, what a welcome sight those several drops were!
- Some swelling has gone down and the pain seems less at this second.
- I slept last night without waking up in a total soaking sweat from fever.
- IF I do need to do a total supplement of formula with August due to losing one side of nursing... I have several cans of formula already stocked up from all the freebies we got. This saves $ and thought process for me.
- My husband is an all star and I have seen him in an all new light. No matter how gray my days are, he tries to keep things light. He cleans, he cooks, he holds babies and disciplines our 2 yr old. He does stories at bedtime, prints off devotionals for me to read through, prays over us at meals, distracts Ava, rubs my neck... etc. And I know how hard this has been on him, too. He's amazing.
- We still have a few days left of getting meals delivered.
- I woke up headache free today
- Using my left arm isn't as painful.

So, through all of this (and what more is to come) I'm trying to find the glimmers. They are there. Thank you for caring and praying. We are now focusing on Monday and the news we'll get there. God already knows and has a perfect plan for us... resting in that.