By: teri on December 26, 2009

So I wrote this email to a friend about how things were going and afterward I decided it was something I’d probably want to remember and so turned it into a post.

We’ve had an interesting last few days. At the beginning of the week I was having trouble feeding AJ on one side. It really hurt but I didn’t think much of it, just cringed through the pain. But it kept getting worse and the night of the 23rd I had a really bad night.
Besides the fact that AJ woke up 4 or 5 times and I was tired, I was also getting really bad chills. I was bundled in the blankets and at one point I got up and put on socks and my fuzzy robe and then got under all the blankets and I was still freezing. I couldn’t stop shivering. I had a bad headache and AJ wouldn’t sleep and feeding him hurt so much. At 5:30am Christmas Eve morning Norm took AJ from me so I could sleep. I tried and slept a little, but my head was pounding so hard and I was so cold that I couldn’t focus or relax. Norm took all the boys shopping so I could rest and I turned on the steam shower to warm up. With that and some tylenol I was feeling a bit better but not much.
We went to my parents in the afternoon thinking at least they could help Norm and play with the boys and I could rest some more. While we were there I told my mom how I was feeling and she watched me start crying from the pain while I was feeding AJ. She recognized the symptoms, knew something wasn’t right and sent Norm and I to the emergency room for Mastitis.

We spent 3 hours Christmas Eve afternoon at the hospital, but she was right. I did have it. They gave me antibiotics that I started that night and Norm kept AJ for the night so I could rest. Unfortunately I had another night filled with chills and headaches and I felt just as bad Christmas morning. But as the drugs started kicking in I got better. By late morning I was feeling a lot less pain in the side that was infected and by about 2 or 3pm my headaches could be cleared by some Tylenol. It has now been 48 hours and I think I’m 99% better. Thank goodness for antibiotics!

On the downside. The night that Norm stayed with AJ (Christmas Eve), had him up at 3:30am. He didn’t go back to bed and so was tired Christmas day. He took a nap at my parents house before the rest of the family got there but he started down a sicky path then. Last night he was coughing and tired and out of it so I sent him to bed and put the boys down. He got a good nights rest but he needed more than that because he’s been off all day today too. He took another nap today and I sent him to bed early tonight but I’m not real hopeful that he will be better tomorrow. When he gets sick it has a tendency to linger.

Thankfully, our little boys haven’t caught anything (not that they could catch what I had so that is good. Tomorrow we’ll go to church in the morning and then have a restful afternoon playing with the plethora of new toys that came for Christmas!
Not quite that last few days that we had in mind, but it sure has been interesting!

I have to go back to the doctors on Monday, not the emergency room but my own OB, so they can verify there is no abscess (but I’m pretty sure there is not). Anyway, we’re waiting to see how our health is.

Now I’m off to bed. AJ has been asleep for a little over an hour so I have to catch up. Hopefully he’ll sleep until at least 2am, like he did last night. Thats good for him. We are going to start him on solids in the next day or two and I’m crossing my fingers that it will help him have a full tummy and in turn sleep better. But we’ll see.