It's been a lumpy summer.  I wrote a month or so ago about a client with an
olive-sized, somewhat irregular lump.  Needle aspiration showed normal
tissue, but after consulting w/ 2 local drs and calling Ruth Lawrence, she
decided to have it removed.  Surgery was uneventful, incision drained some
during first day.

The next day she had chills and fever and, I believe, no further drainage.
Surgeon saw incision that day and felt it looked clean.  Within a week she
had a lump the size of a tennis ball that turned yellow when she used cold
on it.  It sounds as if the surgeon didn't see it again, because the
abscess (of course) ruptured spontaneously about a week after the original
surgery, to her *enormous* relief.  (It made me think of the exquisite
torture horses w/ abscessed hooves must experience - all that pressure
building but with nowhere to go.)  Now, three weeks after the original
surgery, the wound is still being packed daily by a home health nurse, but
"with 5 inches of packing now, instead of 3 feet."

The lump was classified as a) lactating adenoma, b) sclerosing adenoma, c)
fibrosis.  She continues to nurse her 1+ year old uneventfully.

Comments?  This was a woman who battled chronic oversupply and frequent
minor plugs and lumps during the early months.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY