As a Breastfeeding Mom Who Also Worked as a Lactation Consultant, I Thought My Breast Lump Was a Clogged Milk Duct

As advised to Erica Rimlinger

My 3 kids and I had an uncomplicated time breastfeeding, and I nursed my small children for as prolonged as attainable. Friends teased, “Those infants are old ample to check with for a soda,” but I didn’t treatment. I’m an insurance plan agent by trade and a health advocate by passion. I taught exercise lessons for pregnant women and supplied lactation schooling for women of all ages in the WIC application. I’m a cheerleader for wellness, and I advertise the overall health-enhancing rewards of breastfeeding for moms and toddlers. On the road of health and fitness, my lane is avoidance.

When a tricky lump appeared when I was nursing my 3rd son, I thought I experienced a clogged milk duct. In my years of breastfeeding and working with breastfeeding gals, I’d found clogged milk ducts, but I’d by no means had one particular before. The regular treatments of heat compression and massage did not work, so, puzzled, I went to the physician.

I’d a short while ago moved from Rochester, New York, to Houston, Texas, to get my diploma in kinesiology with a emphasis on health and fitness coaching at Texas Woman’s University (TWU). I lived in the vicinity of Texas Clinical Middle, a block away from the TWU campus. With no non-public healthcare service provider (HCP), I went to TWU’s Scholar Overall health Workplace, which was run by the College of Texas. To my shock, the HCP instructed me I necessary a mammogram. Then, after seeing the mammogram, she instructed me to get an appointment with an oncologist.

“Why would I see an oncologist for a breastfeeding issue?” I questioned. “Tell me straight. What is going on?” I attempted to get the HCP to glance me in the eye. She avoided my gaze and my question, and said, “If someone suggests you don’t require a mastectomy, they are lying to you.”

I was 43 decades previous and a healthful mother. I exercised 6 times a 7 days. I under no circumstances took or necessary to choose medicine, even an aspirin. Now, the word “oncologist” hung in the air like a ghost. My father and his two brothers had died of pancreatic cancer. I realized what an oncologist did.

Tamiko Byrd with her kids, 2022. (Photo/Cocoa Rae David)

Tamiko Byrd with her children, 2022. (Photograph/Cocoa Rae David)

Two weeks later on, I sat at a spherical meeting desk at the College of Texas MD Anderson Most cancers Centre with a crew of 5 medical experts. I got my straight respond to. I’d undergone a total working day of tests and acquired I had phase 4 breast cancer. My left breast was riddled with tumors that had metastasized to my shoulder blade.

I remembered what my sister, a nurse practitioner, mentioned when our father was identified with phase 4 cancer: “There’s no phase 5.” That working day, my sister was on a business enterprise journey in Costa Rica when I termed and informed her. She fainted.

I felt faint, way too, but I experienced a combat to get. Within a 7 days, my mom and sister arrived in Houston to support my cure, which commenced practically straight away with chemotherapy.

I now felt just as ill as my diagnosis implied. I thought I’d recognized what fatigue was, but I didn’t. I thought I knew how ill I could be and endure, but I didn’t. I shed my hair, and my eyebrows and eyelashes: the essence of my womanhood. The most cancers heart had a splendor salon the place they shaved me, so I would not have to enjoy my hair slide out strand by strand. I silently prayed, “It’s just you and me, God! I’m afraid. I really do not want to die, God!”

I experienced been working 30 hrs a 7 days although I attended school. My health coverage would have kicked in after 90 times, but I was identified with most cancers the 7 days just before coverage begun, so I was denied protection. The good news is, I labored in insurance policy for many years, and I understood I could charm. As I labored, attended faculty, elevated my sons and fought for my existence with every mobile in my entire body, I also went to struggle with the health coverage business, pleasing its conclusion. I was incredibly and unusually lucky that the medical center allowed me to proceed treatment method for the duration of my charm. I would, immediately after fighting for months, finally gain the attractiveness. In the meantime, I used for Medicaid and obtained it.

I know that if I didn’t occur to have a history in insurance policy, I never could have navigated the complex and time-consuming enchantment process. I could scarcely control it in the affliction I was in.

I lost feeling in my toes and fingers. My joints ached. My fingernails and teeth loosened. But that was not the worst of it. Just after my fifth round of chemotherapy, I lost control of my bowels at perform. “This just can’t be going on,” I sobbed, as I frantically rushed to thoroughly clean up my mess in the lavatory with skinny brown paper towels in amongst bouts of throwing up. I still left do the job that working day and hardly ever went back.

As hard as this was, I experienced faith that God was with me. I journaled my journey on Facebook to rally help and permit my pals and loved ones know we have been preventing. From as considerably away as Africa, Rochester and Costa Rica, my group rallied with prayer circles, groceries, food items, wigs, childcare assistance and a lot more. Before my mastectomy, I threw a likely-absent party for my left breast. It was an personal second where by I sang, cried, prayed and mourned for my breast. In Rochester, I experienced operate a cost-free community training plan referred to as Soul Fitness 10 several hours for each 7 days. Now my outdated learners were being educating me that when you give anything to the community, the group presents again.

1 month right after my mastectomy, my grade issue typical dropped to 2.99 and I was instantly kicked out of faculty. For months, my spirits had been buoyed with really like from my community and loved ones. But I’d also been buoyed by the intellectual stimulation of school, by discovering and holding my head lively, and pursuing my dream of getting a credentialed wellness mentor.

I received indignant. I had at last gained my appeal from the insurance corporation, and now most cancers was coming to get absent my training. “You can not have my head, also,” I informed cancer, and I submitted an charm at the faculty.

The dean and administration in the graduate reports method couldn’t determine out why I required to keep. “Why not just acquire some time to concentration on regaining your wellness?” they questioned. But I didn’t know if I ever would get back my well being, and I required to devote whatsoever time I experienced left pursuing my desire.

I recognized why folks stop — but I was not going to. I would in no way quit.

The school relented, telling me, “OK, Ms. Byrd. We’ve under no circumstances found anybody fight this tough.” I was permitted to retake my semester. But they warned me: Economical assist wouldn’t cover it, and if I failed, I was out for fantastic. I certain them I experienced fought so lots of battles, I could tackle a person much more.

A 7 days later, I went to the clinic for my scheduled whole overall body scan.

The scan found no evidence of condition.

Preventing just about every action of the way, I’d overwhelmed stage 4 breast cancer.

I returned to college. I gained an A+ in my retaken classes. I graduated with an government MBA and a master’s degree in kinesiology, the only scholar in my class to graduate with two degrees.

Now, when people today check with me how I did it, I notify them all the classes I discovered in daily life prior to my cancer prognosis were preparing me for a war I never imagined I’d have to enter. The most important lesson was this: Preserve combating. Even when it would seem like you will not acquire — specifically when it appears like you will not win — struggle anyway.

This useful resource is made with aid from Merck & Sanofi.