This morning was the infamous boob biopsy. I got there a little before 0800 and over the next 45 minutes or so everything went according to plan. The attending, resident, and tech were great–we talked about ours kids’ obsession with all things Frozen–the biopsy itself was relatively painless, and according to the attending, everything went perfectly.
It was as the tech was bandaging me up that things got a little weird.
As I mentioned before, the complication they are most worried about with me is a milk fistula because I am breastfeeding. What this means is that due to the hole they cut into my breast tissue, the milk may decide to just create a new duct of its own and shoot at the top of my boob. Exactly where it is not supposed to go. I’m not supposed to feed the baby from that side for the next 47-71 hours (yes, I am already counting down the time) so as not to encourage the milk to go off route. I can get in the shower to encourage it to leak away, but nursing, pumping, and hand expressing are all forbidden.
So, the tech goes over the bandaging procedure, layer by layer, and as she starts to actually go about her task, I can feel letdown. She laughed a little nervously and said “oh, you’re leaking.” I thought she meant the normal way. Nope. Milk was coming out of my incision.
Fanfuckingtastic.
She calls in one of the other techs to her out by applying pressure while she does her thing. We grab my things, and she walks me over to mammography (I think on Monday I failed to mention that I have to have a mammogram afterward. I’m 28 years old, and I am already getting the breast treatment of someone 1.5 times my age). She drops me off, tells me she will let the mammography tech know I am ready, and we say our goodbyes. Not three minutes later, she returns. The nurse practitioner is going to check things out, first.
Sigh.
The NP pulls everything away and checks the incision. She says it looks okay, but decides it’s best to wait on the mammogram. I get bundled up in my nursing sports bra, an ice pack, a regular sports bra, and then my nursing tank (which, I discovered when I got home, is inside out. No, I have not wrestled it the right-side out, either. I’m sitting here, typing this, shelf bra and seams exposed). I then have the pleasure of trying to schedule another appointment to come in and have my boob smashed between a hard place and a hard place.
But let me just say this: the people at Madigan have been nothing but helpful and accommodating. It gets a really bad rap, and I did have some stressful moments dealing with endocrinology, but in the last two years, I have had nothing but good experiences. The people that took care of me during F’s birth? Wonderful. The people in the breast center? Wonderful. They are so wonderful that they are seeing me on Monday during their lunch break because there is just no other appointments available, and I have to get the mammogram done within the next week. If you ever find yourself at Fort Lewis and seen at Madigan, please know that not everyone has a horror story to tell about the hospital. I’m not trying to discount others’ experiences, but I can’t imagine that I somehow got lucky every single time I have been there–I just don’t have that kind of luck. Trust me.
So, now that I am home, the hard part is beginning. The local anesthesia is starting to wear off and I am feeling sore, already. My three-year-old was up at 6:15, and she normally doesn’t rise until 10:00. My baby is the same way. Everyone’s schedule is thrown, and I am feeling like, well, I got sliced open. My house is a disaster and I want nothing more than to have someone come clean it. And I am worried about my poor boob becoming engorged and making the pain worse. It’s times like these I really wish my parents were closer.
But since they are snowed/iced in… Not sure it would make a difference.
Afterthought: No one gave me an explanation about the exploding milk. But the radiologist explained that the lump was cystic (fluid filled) with a small spot that was fibrous (solid). I am wondering if the midwife was right and it is/was a clogged duct and a fibroadenoma (like the doctor mentioned) formed in/near/whatever it, keeping the milk from doing what it’s supposed to do. Thus, the milk coming out (“I’m free!”). Like I said, no one gave me an explanation. This is just me speculating.
