Mastitis on Easter Sunday

Yep, that's right. I ended up with mastitis in my left breast. I tried to clear it up on my own with hot showers, hot baths, heating pads, hand expressing, pumping, regular breastfeeding. Nothing was working. Sunday it got worse, I felt like my boob was the size of a beach ball and growing by the minute. I couldn't for the life of me get the milk to release. It got so bad that walking hurt and I was shaking from the intense pain, so we headed to the ER. I couldn't take it anymore. It wasn't too bad of a wait I'm sure, but when your breast is throbbing it feels like hours. Anyway, we left with some antibiotics and pain meds. When I got home I took both, waited for the pain meds to kick in and got in the bath to hand express. I had my pump with me so that helped out too. Since then it feels better, but it's really sore from where I had to hand express and massage the milk out. When I was talking to the doc she said the only way to get rid of mastitis was to empty the breast, I told her I tried everything. Her response? Try harder. She told me she had it too with her son and it was also on a holiday, Christmas. How horrible... I'm pretty sure I had the coolest RN ever. He was a character, to say the least... Told me to take my hydrcodone with a case of beer and I'd be "feeling about right". Lol. At least Bobby got me some ice cream out of the whole ordeal... :o)