I’m not sure why all these freakish things happen to me….or why I feel compelled to write about them here. But since I’ve already shared my tilted uterus and cervical mucous stories, I might as well tell you about my itchy nipple.

My breasts are no strangers to trauma. When I was 23, I started lactating for no reason at all. I had to go on Progesterone therapy to make them stop producing milk. Then at 24, I developed a lump that wouldn’t go away. At first, the Dr’s tried to drain it with a needle. But after 15 minutes of moving the needle around inside of my left boob and the most excruciating pain I had ever felt up to that point, they pulled the needle out and told me the lump matter was solid, not fluid filled and therefore it could not be drained. It would have to be surgically cut out.

I remember laying on the OR table, counting back from 10…9.. 8… and then waking up in the recovery room high on Morphine. The first thing I saw was the OJ Simpson trial on one of the hospital TV’s. All was calm on the boob front for almost a decade, until 3 years ago. I had another lump aspirated via a needle biopsy in early 2003. Then later that same year, one breast became so sore and swollen that I could barely tolerate having a lightweight cotton t-shirt rub against it. My GYN sent me for my first ever Mammogram and referred me to a surgeon.

Let me describe this procedure for those of you who don’t know. You stand obviously topless facing this upright machine with two huge metal plates that reminded me of something from Mr. Remsen’s 7th grade Industrial Arts class, that you’d see at the edge of the workbench. Next, the technologist using a paddle device, positions the breast between the two cold metal plates, squishing it down onto the contraption.

Then they tell you to hold perfectly still as the plates begin to close, flattening your boob like a pancake. They will tell you that some women with “sensitive breasts” may experience some discomfort as the breast is squeezed by the compressor.

Under normal circumstances, I’m sure this is true. But what they didn’t realize in MY case – was that the lump in my breast was actually an abscess that had formed. And IF it was causing me intolerable amounts of pain to have a lightweight cotton tee pressing up against my infected boob, how exactly do you think it felt to be squished in a giant f*cking vice grip???? It made the needle aspiration of ‘94 feel like foreplay.

Men, imagine your balls being squeezed together with a giant pair of pliers and you will start to imagine how painful this was.
The Dr's and technicians at the time didn’t know there was an abscess so they just assumed I was being a big cry baby. And all they kept saying was, “It really shouldn’t hurt at all, you should only feel a slight discomfort” Yeah, well walk a mile in my sore boobs lady and then tell me it doesn’t feel like you’re having your chest run over by a dump truck.

They later surmised that an abscess may have formed from sweat being trapped in my sports bra and some of the perspiration seeped in through the nipple, traveling up inside, eventually clogging one of my milk ducts, thus forming a big nasty inflamed abscessed boob lump. I told you freakish things happen to me…

In the end, the films were inconclusive because I was moving so much that they were blurry. I went through all of that torture for nothing. In the end, it was another lump that needed to be drained with a needle right then and there on his office table. No drugs, no anesthesia, no numbing cream. It was a process that took only 1 minute but felt like 1 hour. Afterwards, I walked around with a black, blue, yellow, and purple breast for 2 weeks. Not to mention stoned on a whole lot of Vicodin.

That was my first and last (to date) experience with a mammogram. Needless to say, it was a frightening and painful procedure and now I am terrified to ever go through it again.

But getting back to the itchy nipple, the latest of my breast traumas -- it started out last Tuesday night after a run. I peeled off my sweaty sports bra and noticed my right boob was red and very itchy. I just figured it was a minor skin irritation, maybe some detergent from the fabric mixed with some of my sweat causing a chemical reaction…maybe the new self tanning moisturizer I had used the night before. Who knows with me!

The next morning I awoke to look in the mirror and now there is a red rash covering almost the entire right boob and the nipple area is very itchy!! I go to work, sitting at my desk which is out on a very public floor and am trying everything I can to NOT stick my hand in my shirt and start scratching my itch. One of them caught me with my hand in my shirt so I had to tell. I mean, what's worse - having them know I have a nipple rash or for them to think I'm some nympho feeling myself up? I keep getting up to go into the ladies room. Where upon lifting up my bra and looking in the mirror, I don’t like what I see! The whole boob is inflamed and rash is spreading.

Promptly I go back to my desk and Google “itchy rash on breast”. Every result that comes up is “itchy rash on breast a form of breast cancer...a rare and aggressive form ” I read on a little further to the Diagnosis section and I see the words in big black BOLD letters, Biopsy, MAMMORGRAM. F*ck!

Now my heart starts racing and in my head I am already planning Pugsley’s future without me. Who will take care of him when I’m gone? Or know how he likes his belly rubbed? How often he needs his anal sacs drained, and how to tuck his toys under his head b4 he goes to sleep at night? The itching gets worse.

Does anyone else make this mistake? Google a simple medical condition to self diagnose and suddenly find that you have every symptom listed for the most horrific of all possible diseases on Webmd.com, setting you off into full panic mode? I know I shouldn’t do it but my nature is to research and study…When I was sick with Toxic Hepatitis for weeks and the Dr’s couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, I drove myself close to brink of insanity visiting every medical site and online help forum on web. I realize it’s a fine like to walk between being informed and turning into an all out neurotic Hypochondriac.

Friends keep IM’ing me asking for things, “I need so and so’s address” SL says. I tell her I can’t concentrate because I’m too worried too about my itchy nipple.

Then Jim IM’s me – “Try to relax, it is nothing I’m sure and keep in mind that your neurotic side is your most Loveable quality…. Be sure to keep me abreast of your situation”

Smart Ass.

Thursday night in the waiting room of the GYN. The same scene of last months Pap Fear crime. This time the receptionist informs me that the Dr. is running late. In walks a pregnant woman who tells the nurse that her water just broke and she can’t sit down. They escort her to the back and as she walked by me I could see her gray sweatpants were soaked through one end to the other….Obviously it’s going to be a long night. Broken water Trumps itchy nipple rash.

An hour later, Dr. Johnson comes in. So what seems to be the problem? I whip open my paper napkin of a gown and point to my right one. She looks a little surprised, wasn’t expecting that nasty of a rash. Her eyes widened and she told me lay down. “Well I don’t think it was anything you ate.” Yea…it never crossed my mind that something I ate might cause my right boob to turn red and develop what looks like a diaper rash.

She checked me all over for lumps and discussed my concerns about Pagets. After about 5 minutes, it was just as Web MD reported. The first course of action for an itchy breast rash is they try treating you with anti inflammatories to rule out allergies. She prescribed a steroidal topical and 2 Benedryl a day for a week. If after a week, the rash isn’t gone or improved, they are sending me back to the boob doctor for a biopsy.

Whatever, I have to go put my nipple cream on now.