So we finally managed to book our holiday - a week in Tuscany, more about that soon.
This post is about the holiday preparation, which fell to me, as the primary earner of the household as busy primary earning and practicing in the lead up to the hol.
This is unfortunate as organisation is not my strong suit - for days I washed and dried and ironed clothes while the house get more hectic, and the piles of washing and ironing mounted. As the week went on, I seemed to get less ready and things kept getting in the way.
I'd been having trouble feeding the baby for few weeks - my nipples were getting bruised and horribly sore, to the extent that I had to pump on one side. I emailed the breast feeding consultant who got back to me several days later, offering me a free consultation in Liffey Valley, so I trekked out there Thursday instead of preparing for the hol, to find I had thrush - in the baby's mouth and it had got onto me. Then I had to pick up the passports in town, failed to go to the homoeopathic pharmacy but got home to find my homoeopath was away and had time for limited communication only - then I trolled around for someone to give me the remedy, feeling like a fool, and - get this - rang a homoeopath I thought I'd got help from before and arranged to pick up the remedy from her - only to get to her house and realise I'd been talking to the wrong woman! I confused an Aileen with an Aideen whose name I must have heard before, I don't know where, dur! So I had to drive around to find her, feeling like a dick.
Leaving her house I noticed I had pain in my left breast but I sort of ignored it (dur again) and went to Blackrock to get knitting stuff for the holiday - got there, parked, walked to the shop, realised I'd left pattern in car, walked back, returned to shop, bought stuff, and struggled home, stayed up til one am doing stuff, husband hadn't packed or done anything other than put kids to bed, we were both wrecked.
Next morning the pain was still there and I realised I had blocked ducts - tried to get in touch with homeopath but she didn't respond so I didn't talk to her til 2.30, but which time it was too late - I got into bed at her insistence and took the mastitis remedy, but still developed an infection anyway, chills and a fever and a scary red line leading out from my nipple! My hom. freaked me out by insisting I get a wheelchair to take me round th airport, as we were leaving at 4 am that morning! I was also meant to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING which the husband deeply didn't appreciate - he was up til all hours doing the stuff he hadn't done the bits I hadn't got to with a serious lack of grace brought on by exhaustion and the fact that he'd got home from work extremely late and was busy doing band stuff. Not a fun evening. And I was so upset, I was convinced I'd be ill throughout the holiday, not to mention all the scary mastitis possibilities.
BUT! I took 2 fever remedies that night and the fever went and didn't come back. Another remedy kept the infection at bay and the line came and went a few times but disappeared for good by Monday. Hot and cold showers worked best at releasingthe blockage, and that went by Monday too with lots and lots of feeding.
There was a very helpful article in Mothering as well which had great tips and explanations - thanks Alicia!
All in all, I blame being overtired and overextended with 2 kids (with My first I spent a couple months on the sofa!), wearing my lovely Anita underwired nursing bra to bed a few times when I was too tired to go down and get a wireless one - duh, how stupid? And now I'm scared to wear it at all! Also the thrush encourages it, I think. But I would agree that if you get to it in the first 24 hours you don't need anti biotics, the remedies work so well, cabbage leaves are excellent for the swelling and discomfort, lots of water, and go to bed and feed feed feed. I took vitaminB6 too, and lots of pro-biotics.
Coming up: raving about Tuscany, but first, my 100 favourite things (or possibly foods) post!
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