Since the last month of my pregnacy, my body has been through the mill but has still yet to come out the other side. Just when I think I'm back up to par another ailment rudely slaps me round the face. I completely expected to be knocked about whilst I was pregnant and expected a recovery period but it feels like I'm the sticky fly paper to all the bugs that are within a square metre of me.
I felt like logging these ailments as I'm starting to loose track so consider this my illness diary (I'll understand if you don't want to read it).
When i was about 6 weeks off my due date I noticed a lump in one of my breasts which grew and became red over a couple of weeks. It all pointed to being milk related, being that I was pregnant and so close to the due date, so the doctor put me on antibiotics thinking it could be
Mastitis (something you only normally get once you start breast feeding).
The main priority was to have a working breast so I could feed the baby, so after the pills didn't work the doctor wanted me to see a breast specialist before the baby arrived. However the NHS being what it is meant that the soonest (even after the doctor put in an urgent referal) I could get an appointment was for two weeks time which actually took me three days PAST my due date. Monday 14th July. However that turned out to be the day that my midwife sent me to the hospital with
preeclampsia so I missed the appointment.
The preeclampsia then became the big issue. Because of this, the birth became a worry for the hospital and once they got my blood tests back and saw I had 'abnormal' readings they were more worried. The put me in a high dependency room where I had fantastic care from some wonderful women. They induced me as quickly as they could and checked my blood pressure every hour (even through the night) and had me on all sorts of drips as well as a catheter. I was on pills to keep the blood pressure down, I was on a drip to stop those pills from making me fit, I was on an inducement drip and had two monitors on the baby. I couldn't get off the bed basically. I then I started getting contractions.
In brief, they hurt. A lot. The Tens machine was crap. The gas and air was good but then became less so!
After the inducement stopped progressing (even through all that pain? go figure) they wanted to whack the drip right up (essentially turning it to 11) so gave me an epidural. This then started making the baby unhappy so they decided a cesarean would be the best option being that we needed to get the baby out as quickly as possible whilst keeping my blood pressure down.
So that's how Oli made his way in to the world. Luckily a very healthy boy.
The problem with the breast lump then raised it's head again because it's location meant that Oli was physically unable to feed from that breast. So I decided to express the milk which then made the lump angry and created a very nasty absess which then needed urgent minor surgery. All of this happened before my rearranged appointment, but lets not discuss the NHS right now!
So to cut an already long story short I have only been feeding Oli from one breast so you can imagine how my breasts look - like a before and after!
ANYWAY since then the smallest of ailments seem to have hit me really hard. From ongoing embarrassing things that I won't mention, to things like a ripped nail that became infected and started tracking up my arm, to a sore throat that got so bad I couldn't swallow. Every other week it's been something else. I'm not sure if it's because of general rundown-ness and then lack of sleep for my body to recouperate, or whether the amount of pills I've been on has made my body even weaker.
For somebody that's never normally ill though it's a horrible shock. Especially when you need all the energy you can get to look after your new baby.
Hopefully, my current lurgy is on it's way out in time for a nice weekend with my new family.
UPDATE: Turns out I had
Mastitis.
