Mastitis?

ohmygod ohmygod! I was reading a posting today at www.dooce.com and Heather (Heather Armstrong, not my sister Heather Worth) was writing about her experience with something called mastitis.

Never heard of it. Wish I still hadn't.

This is how she described it.

...about 4AM Saturday morning when I woke up to feed Marlo and my left breast felt like someone had sliced it open and shoved in a handful of broken glass. I thought I'd try to ignore it, and oh, moan in silence? Bite my lip until I was drowning in a puddle of blood? What was I thinking, YOU CANNOT IGNORE THAT KIND OF PAIN. So I tapped a sleeping Jon on the shoulder and whispered, "Honey, can you take the baby, I think I'm dying."

I immediately headed for the kitchen where we keep the Advil, and I don't even remember how I made it the fifty or so feet from the bed to the medicine cabinet, but there I am taking a couple of pills and next thing you know I can barely stand up. And I guess while reaching for the countertop to steady myself I knocked over the glass of water I used to take the pills and it went crashing into a thousand pieces on the floor. Somehow I make it back to the bedroom when suddenly I'm overcome with the need to puke, and Jon is all, what was that crash? And I'm all, what crash? And he's all, THE CRASH THAT SOUNDED LIKE A CAR FLEW THROUGH OUR FRONT DOOR. And I'm all, why are you moving your mouth and talking to me, can't you see I need to vomit?

Whaaaat? That sounds crazy bad...like kicking a guy in the balls right after feeding him a listeria-ridden sandwich with an Ipecac chaser. Of course, I immediately began to wonder what the friggerty hell is mastitis and how do I avoid it?

According to the internet (and of course, everything on the internet is the absolute truth) cabbage has something to do with prevention...or the cure...or something. Since I can't even be in the room with anything cabbage-related other than small quantities of shredded raw red cabbage sprinkled artfully on my salads I have come to the conclusion that I'm COMPLETELY SCREWED! Also, this internet information isn't clear as to whether someone wishing to avail themselves of this prevention/cure/whatever should eat the cabbage or simply line their bras with it...

Believe me, if I suffer through mastitis it isn't going to end well.

Scott, start praying I'm immune!