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 a few children and I had an straightforward time breastfeeding, and I nursed my youngsters for as prolonged as doable. Good friends teased, “Those infants are previous sufficient to inquire for a soda,” but I didn’t care. I’m an coverage agent by trade and a wellbeing advocate by enthusiasm. I taught physical exercise lessons for pregnant girls and offered lactation schooling for women of all ages in the WIC application. I’m a cheerleader for wellness, and I market the overall health-boosting positive aspects of breastfeeding for moms and infants. On the road of wellness, my lane is avoidance.

When a really hard lump appeared when I was nursing my 3rd son, I assumed I experienced a clogged milk duct. In my decades of breastfeeding and functioning with breastfeeding females, I’d viewed clogged milk ducts, but I’d never ever had one ahead of. The ordinary remedies of heat compression and therapeutic massage didn’t do the job, so, puzzled, I went to the physician.

I’d recently moved from Rochester, New York, to Houston, Texas, to get my diploma in kinesiology with a aim on health and fitness coaching at Texas Woman’s University (TWU). I lived around Texas Health-related Center, a block absent from the TWU campus. With no non-public health care service provider (HCP), I went to TWU’s Scholar Wellness Office, which was run by the University of Texas. To my surprise, the HCP advised me I required a mammogram. Then, right after seeing the mammogram, she informed me to get an appointment with an oncologist.

“Why would I see an oncologist for a breastfeeding concern?” I questioned. “Tell me straight. What is likely on?” I tried out to get the HCP to glimpse me in the eye. She prevented my gaze and my issue, and stated, “If a person suggests you don’t need a mastectomy, they are lying to you.”

I was 43 years old and a healthful mother. I exercised six times a week. I under no circumstances took or wanted to get medication, even an aspirin. Now, the phrase “oncologist” hung in the air like a ghost. My father and his two brothers had died of pancreatic most cancers. I understood what an oncologist did.

Tamiko Byrd with her little ones, 2022. (Picture/Cocoa Rae David)

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

Two weeks later, I sat at a spherical meeting table at the University of Texas MD Anderson Most cancers Heart with a crew of five health care pros. I acquired my straight solution. I’d been through a whole day of screening and acquired I experienced stage 4 breast cancer. My left breast was riddled with tumors that experienced metastasized to my shoulder blade.

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

I felt faint, much too, but I experienced a struggle to gain. In just a 7 days, my mom and sister arrived in Houston to assistance my treatment method, which started pretty much straight away with chemotherapy.

I now felt just as sick as my prognosis implied. I imagined I’d regarded what exhaustion was, but I didn’t. I assumed I understood how sick I could be and endure, but I didn’t. I missing my hair, and my eyebrows and eyelashes: the essence of my womanhood. The most cancers centre had a elegance salon where by they shaved me, so I wouldn’t have to enjoy my hair slide out strand by strand. I silently prayed, “It’s just you and me, God! I’m fearful. I never want to die, God!”

I had been doing work 30 several hours a week even though I attended university. My wellness coverage would have kicked in just after 90 times, but I was identified with cancer the 7 days right before coverage started off, so I was denied protection. The good news is, I labored in insurance coverage for many years, and I realized I could charm. As I labored, attended college, elevated my sons and fought for my daily life with each mobile in my entire body, I also went to battle with the overall health insurance enterprise, interesting its choice. I was particularly and unusually privileged that the healthcare facility authorized me to carry on treatment all through my attractiveness. I would, immediately after preventing for months, eventually get the attractiveness. In the meantime, I applied for Medicaid and obtained it.

I know that if I did not happen to have a history in coverage, I hardly ever could have navigated the sophisticated and time-consuming attractiveness method. 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 tooth loosened. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Immediately after my fifth round of chemotherapy, I lost control of my bowels at do the job. “This simply cannot be occurring,” I sobbed, as I frantically rushed to clean up my mess in the lavatory with slender brown paper towels in amongst bouts of throwing up. I left operate that working day and by no means went again.

As tricky as this was, I experienced religion that God was with me. I journaled my journey on Fb to rally aid and permit my pals and household know we were being preventing. From as much absent as Africa, Rochester and Costa Rica, my group rallied with prayer circles, groceries, food stuff, wigs, childcare help and a lot more. Just before my mastectomy, I threw a likely-absent bash for my still left breast. It was an personal minute where I sang, cried, prayed and mourned for my breast. In Rochester, I had operate a totally free community training software termed Soul Health 10 hours for every 7 days. Now my aged students had been teaching me that when you give something to the group, the group provides back.

One particular month following my mastectomy, my quality place ordinary dropped to 2.99 and I was instantly kicked out of school. For months, my spirits experienced been buoyed with adore from my local community and spouse and children. But I’d also been buoyed by the intellectual stimulation of college, by discovering and retaining my head active, and pursuing my aspiration of getting to be a credentialed wellbeing mentor.

I obtained offended. I experienced at last won my appeal towards the coverage enterprise, and now cancer was coming to acquire absent my education. “You can not have my mind, as well,” I told most cancers, and I submitted an attraction at the college.

The dean and administration in the graduate scientific tests program could not figure out why I needed to keep. “Why not just acquire some time to aim on regaining your health and fitness?” they asked. But I didn’t know if I ever would regain my wellbeing, and I wanted to expend whatsoever time I had left pursuing my desire.

I comprehended why men and women give up — but I was not going to. I would by no means quit.

The university relented, telling me, “OK, Ms. Byrd. We have never ever viewed anyone combat this tough.” I was permitted to retake my semester. But they warned me: Economic help would not cover it, and if I unsuccessful, I was out for excellent. I assured them I experienced fought so lots of battles, I could handle one extra.

A 7 days later, I went to the hospital for my scheduled full body scan.

The scan observed no proof of ailment.

Preventing just about every move of the way, I’d crushed stage 4 breast most cancers.

I returned to school. I received an A+ in my retaken lessons. I graduated with an government MBA and a master’s diploma in kinesiology, the only student in my course to graduate with two degrees.

Now, when people today question me how I did it, I convey to them all the classes I learned in everyday living prior to my cancer diagnosis ended up getting ready me for a war I never ever considered I’d have to enter. The most critical lesson was this: Retain fighting. Even when it would seem like you won’t get — especially when it would seem like you will not win — battle anyway.

This resource is established with aid from Merck & Sanofi.