My rare disease

Just to get this out of the way up front, this is a discussion of pumping so it involves talking about my boobs. Male relatives, be warned.

So the other morning, I woke up and  went to pump. On nights when B gets a bottle I pump first thing in the morning to make up for it. Side note: all the breastfeeding books say that if your baby is feeding from a bottle, you should be pumping at that instant. They want me to wake up and pump at the same time someone else is waking up to give B a bottle. Are these people out of their minds? The pump was invented so ladies could get some shut-eye.*

*The pump is also nice because it allows preemies who can't breastfeed but need the nutrition most to drink breastmilk. It has many other benefits for people in much more dire situations than I. I am selfish. 

His indifference towards the bottle indicates he has no idea that is the closest thing to homecooked he'll get.

Back to the story. I have a hand towel that I keep with my pump to wipe up the occasional drippage. Notice I said "occasional"? Meaning there is absolutely no need to wash this towel after every use so I just leave it sitting out. Anyways, after I finish pumping, I reach for my towel and use it to wipe off my boob. I try to contain my panic as I notice BLOOD on the towel!!! Quickly my mind races through all of the possible boob conditions I've read about... mastitis? thrush? I don't think anything I'm aware of has bloody milk as a symptom. Nothing hurts on the outside so I don't think there is a surface wound. Naturally I conclude that there is blood entering my milk ducts from the inside but how did it get there? First of all my milk ducts have to be punctured and I don't recall any chest wounds I've suffered. There also has to be free flowing blood in my chest in order for the blood to get in there... Internal bleeding in my chest?? OH MY GOD MY HEART IS PROBABLY PUNCTURED! How am I still alive??

As I'm about to race to B's crib to say goodbye to him before I bleed out, I glance at the kitchen counter. There I see an empty frozen pizza box, dirtied pizza pan, and a pizza slicer also covered in blood. Either there was a very slow and painful murder committed in my kitchen last night or.... I sniff my bloody towel for confirmation. Sure enough, my boob is actually covered with marinara. It would seem that even after a year+ of living in this house, G still does not know where we keep the potholders but he was wise enough to grab a towel off the counter to get his pizza out of the oven. My emotions now waver between thankfulness to be alive and fury that he ate my Amy's spinach pizza.

Murder victim. (Why yes I do get the low sodium version. My blood pressure is high enough as you can tell.)

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