My daughter is 20 months old, and I have recently recovered from a breast infection. The clinical term is mastitis, but I tend to shy away from calling it that. Growing up on a farm, I have heard the term mastitis applied all to often to members of the bovine species. Maybe I'm a bit neurotic, but I cannot rid myself of the cow/mastitis connection. If I were to find myself uttering the words, "I have mastitis," I would feel like I was calling myself a cow! No matter what you call it, though, a breast infection, for lack of better word, sucks. I have finally gotten over my breast infection, but it was painful and tiring.

Late one night, I noticed that my breast was very tender, as if engorged with milk. However, my daughter is almost two years old, and I haven't had engorgement issues for quite some time. Shortly after I noticed the tenderness in my breast, I realized that my arms and legs were achy, and I had a sore throat. Being a breastfeeding info junkie, I already knew that these were classic symptoms of a breast infection. I got out of bed and proceeded to the bathroom. I switched on the light and examined my painful breast. Sure enough, it had pink streaks on one side, and it was hot to the touch. After that, I was certain that it was a breast infection. I went back to bed and slept until morning.

In the morning, my breast was even more tender. I had a fever, I was achy all over, and even though I'd had a full night's sleep, I was exhausted. It was a level of tiredness I'd never experienced before. It seemed to reach right down to my bones and envelope me in a blanket of fatigue. I spent most of that day lying around on the couch, trying to rest enough to feel normal-tired again, instead of half-dead. Once again, from all the reading I've done about breast infections, I have learned that rest is essential to recovery. I think all the lounging around I did that day really helped me to beat my infection.

Over the next few days, I worked hard at trying to take it easy. I spent what felt like endless hours bent over the kitchen table, soaking my sore breast in steaming water, my children walking into the room to stare at me with huge eyes, surely wondering if Mommy had gone crazy. When I wasn't soaking, I spent a lot of time in the recliner with my feet up, occasionally taking a break to wash the dishes that were piling up in the kitchen sink. All of that soaking and resting did get rather tedious, but I know that they were important to my recovery.

My has daughter provided invaluable assistance to me during my recovery. During that first day of soreness and fatigue, she complained that my breast milk tasted "yucky." She was a trooper, though, and she hung in there and nursed her little heart out. I am convinced that all the nursing she did was crucial to beating my breast infection. My daughter's frequent nursing wasn't the only thing she did to help me. She was also a great source of moral support and tender loving care. At only 20 months of age, my daughter showed an incredible amount of empathy toward me, and she did all she could to nurse me back to health. She calls my breasts nee-nees, and each time she began to nurse, she would pat my cheek and say, "Nee-nee feel better." When I was so bone tired and sore, these little moments of tenderness gave me the strength I needed so badly. As I was resting, my daughter spent quite a bit of time on my lap, hugging and kissing my nee-nees, and just watching over me. I'll never forget how compassionate she has shown herself to be at such a young age.

Over my mothering career, I have spent a lot of time reading up, trying to become a quasi-expert on the subject of breastfeeding. The information I had read did help me to recover from my breast infection, but written words cannot sufficiently describe what a mother goes through during the time of infection. However, after my first-hand experience, I now know how awful a breast infection can be. I guess there are some things you just can't learn from books. Also, I think that from now on I will feel a bit more sympathetic toward the bovine species. Like it or not, I now have something in common with the my friends the cows.

Andrea McMann lives in rural Nebraska with her husband and two young children.