[Ruth]

Been there...lets see. I found mine while weaning my daughter from nursing. What finally caught the attention was my inability to get my engorgement down...after 9 MONTHS!
A little history. Almost immediately after my daughters birth my right breast had problems with engorgement. I was on antibiotics; bled from the nipple; went to hospital lactating specialists; and OBGYN. I didn't have these extreme problems nursing my older boys but the lactating specialist just told me to keep going. I remember trying heating compresses; cabbage leaves and manually compressing the breast to get the "engorgement" down. My nodes were engorged and that is also common with nursing. It didn't raise flags and no-one mentioned a mammogram since you can't get one while nursing. Plus I was in my 30's and no history of any cancer anywhere in my family.
Then I finally started weaning my daughter after months of frustrated nursing. I couldn't get "the lump" in my breast to go away. Went to my OBGYN and goodness probably had the cancer the whole time and it was in 10 of my lymphnodes. My Oncologist feels the nursing aggrevated the situation since my nodes were on super cleasing mode. It's hard to say why things happened the way they did. Who knows why these things happen. I don't regret nursing my sweet Emma and had to promise the boys that their baby sister wouldn't get cancer from the milk. At the time that was their greatest concern. The innocence of kids.
Don't forget to always have hope...this all happened to me over 6 years ago. Still here and sometimes wish I could nurse another little one.
Hugs ~ Ruth