25...give or take

i have mastitis.....AGAIN. on the off chance that any of you reading this are male...i would encourage you to just let this one go by. this is nothing you really care to know about. trust me.

i had never heard of mastitis until shortly after my oldest little man was born. these are the things people don't tell you. i got it for the first time when i was nursing colt. he was, like, 3 weeks old. then i got it approximately 4 more times. then the same thing happened with chase, and aiden. so, by the time i weaned aiden, i had gone through this dangerous, staff infection of the clogged milk duct more times then i could count. i think i had it 7 or 8 times with aiden. one would think that after nursing 3 babies, my body would know what to do the fourth time around. no such luck. i am now dealing with my 8th case of mastitis with puddin pie, and this one is a whopper. i found out during aiden's reign that i had an overactive letdown reflex. this should not be surprising...what, with my flair for overacting in general. but for real??? even my milk ducts are hyper? evidently so. which would explain the fact that i could probably feed 4 children simultaneously and still have milk left over. when the kids were itty bitties, we would have milk everywhere! soaking through clothes, leaking down my shirt, spraying all over the place, gagging the baby, and jamming the freezer door. all this is great at all...except it leads to the dreaded clog, that inevitably gets infected. i usually wake up in the night or in the morning and feel like someone is stabbing me in the............well..............."duct" and a high fever shortly follows. then you feel like you have the flu. it's pretty great.

if my calculations are correct, this is around my 25th case of mastitis...give or take. now, my doctor doesn't even make me come in. they are on a first name basis with me and my................"ducts".