The Story of an Abscess

This whole ordeal started about a month ago.  I noticed that I had a lump in my breast.  I called and talk to my sisters about it and they told me I most likely had a plugged duct and to put warm compresses on it and to try to massage it out if possible.  They also said to nurse Elise on that side first and always try to make sure that she emptied me out.  I tried to follow their instructions but had no luck.  The plugged duct turned into mastitis :(  Another fun factor in this game is that currently I have no insurance.  My brother in law is a doctor so he came to the rescue and prescribed and anti biotic for me.  I started taking it and felt much much better.  My energy level was back and I felt functional.  The lump was still there.  Everyone I talked to said to make sure to keep taking the anti-biotics until they were gone and the lump should go away.  Well, it didn't.  I kept hoping and hoping that it would work itself out, but of course it didn't.  The pain and pressure and the sunburn it was giving me from the inside out eventually became too much to take so even with no insurance, I called the doctor and made an appointment.  The night before the appointment it hurt so bad I hardly got any sleep at all.  My appointment was with an NP.  She took one look at it and went to get the doctor- it was THAT bad.  I could even hear all of the nurses talking outside my door saying things like, "Did you see it?"  "Oh that poor girl, its terrible" so on and so forth.  I was the 'show' for the day.  The NP even came in and asked if some of the workers that were nursing students could come in and see it- so I said sure, why not!  The doctor thinks that it might even be MRSA but we won't know until Monday when my culture sample comes back.  The doctor referred me to a general surgeon and I was to go to him in just 1 hour to have him drain the abscess.  Here comes the gross part!  I got to the surgeons office and got all checked in.  He gave me some shots in my breast so it wouldn't hurt as bad, and made his incision.  Yes, I could feel all sorts of puss or whatever it was run down and when he pulled out the abscess he showed it to me.  It was about the size of a nickel, and round.  He said that is pretty large as far as abscesses go I guess.  It did feel nice to have all that pressure gone.  The terrible part is that I didn't get instantly stitched up.  Even as I type this I have an open wound filled with gauze.  Zack and I have nick-named it my "gun shot wound" because that is what it looks like!  I have an appointment on Monday to have the nurse look at it, and on Thursday the surgeon will stitch me up and hopefully then I will be on the road to a full recovery.

If you made it this far, congratulations!!  It was long and gross but I want to remember this so that one day if Elise is a difficult teenager (lets hope not!) that I can hold this over her head ;)   Another scar all in the sake of motherhood, right?!