It is not fun to be a hypochondriac. At all.
The night before last, I woke up in the middle of the night because I was suddenly terribly itchy. Specifically, I was itchy all over my boobs. I eventually got back to sleep, but woke up at my normal time, still itchy and also kind of stuffed up and run down, like I am coming down with a head cold of some sort.
I did everything I could to not itch, but I felt pretty miserable by the end of yesterday. I took some children’s benadryl (all we had) when I got home and lathered myself up with lanolin. That seemed to help relieve me of the itchiness for a while. I talked to Steve about it and told him I was afraid I had cholestastis of the liver and that I needed to get that treated. That was maybe a dumb thought, but hypochondriacs are not always rational.
Last night, I fell asleep fine, but woke up at 4:15 with a headache, itchiness, and stuffiness. FUN! I could not get back to sleep. I have been running on caffeine and fumes since then. I am still terribly itchy, despite more benadryl and lanolin. I made the mistake of googling “itchy breasts” and one of the first results was about a terrible form of breast cancer! That had me worried! Though, I am also kind of hive-y elsewhere, so I don’t think that that is probably the case. But, YOU NEVER KNOW.
Then, when I was pumping, I noticed that there was a little stringy bit of milk on my nipple. (Wow, the things that I write – so TMI!) I thought that maybe I had a clogged duct, because of the fact that Katja’s latch on that side kind of bothered me last night (due to the itchiness), and maybe I didn’t feed her as much from that side as I normally would….then, this afternoon, it happened again! I am not in pain, but I am itchy and uncomfortable. I felt woozy for a while and was afraid that I was coming down with mastitis. Then, I started worrying about getting thrush and even went so far as to order some Grape Seed Extract JUST IN CASE. THEN, I started worrying again about breast cancer, since I had itchy boobs and stringy milk (two little strings, mind you, not like my entire pumping output was full of strings).
UGH.
I am itchy on my eye, my nose, my neck, my right arm, my breastbone, and my boobs. This is probably not “breast cancer”, but probably either an allergy thing or related to the head cold that I am definitely coming down with. But, still, what of the possible clogged duct? Or, is there something else that is causing the stringiness?
Hypochondria. So fun.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that in there, I was also worried about developing some weird acute infection and just toppling over here at work. That was a thought that ran through my head when I was feeling kind of weird earlier today.
In other news, Katja had her one year check-up on Tuesday and is doing so well. She started taking tentative steps on the day before her birthday (Saturday night) and has been doing it sporadically since then. She is almost 21 pounds (50th percentile) and 29.5 inches (65th percentile). Her head remains very large. Must be because of all those brains in there. We don’t need to go in again until 15 months. Her doctor did talk about night weaning (not going to do that yet) and other things, but I just did the “smile and nod” that I always do. We ARE trying to get her in her crib for at least the first part of the night. We have yet to succeed with that. Did we create a monster? Maybe!
Life things: I am taking a day off tomorrow, which is definitely needed. I am getting my hair done and am so excited about that. I also need to renew my driver’s license and possibly work in the house….though, I may just end up sleeping. WHO KNOWS?
