"Misdiagnosed mastitis/flu"

I came in to urgent care on easter Monday suffering from a sore, swollen red breast which was rightfully diagnosed as mastitis. Took the antibiotics and had up and down fever til Wednesday when I felt absolutely fine. Wednesday night my fever returned along with the shakes. My nipples hurt quite badly. I fed my baby and went back to sleep, woke up at 3, fed again and then woke up at 5:30 extremely weak with a very high temp, slurred speech and shakes. Called 111 and after my husband convinced them I was unable to walk, the paramedics came and were worried I was septic. My temp was 41. Had to leave my EBF baby but was told he could be bought over later.

Go to the resus and was told I had an abscess that needed to be removed. Was given medication to help level me. Was left to it for ages with no way of contacting my husband. 5 hours later a breast specialist comes and check my now super swollen breast and says he doesn’t think it’s mastitis as he can’t feel any lump. I told him I have extreme sore nipples and there are lumps which he dismissed as blocked ducts.

So all the doctors and nurses had to go ahead with this guy even though they could see what was up. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong so diagnosed me with flu I wasn’t able to pump. My baby was bought in sporadically to feed. I was in resus for 12 hours before moving to aau2 where I was told I could have my baby with me as I’d have my own room.

This was not the case. The nurses did help and got it to work and got me a pump as mine had broken. The pump made my bad breast worse though.

In the morning my husband and i were reprimanded for having our baby there as I had flu, there were infectious people on the ward who were in quarantine like I was. Also for getting staff to get a pump and that I should have gotten my husband to buy one on the high street at 9pm at night. I explained my situation and how resus said it was fine and I was dismissed.

After that my breast was ignored. It got worse. I couldn’t hand express as it was so sore. No one came to advise or help. A nurse suggested I switch to formula as she didn’t breastfeed...I asked to leave after that.

I had shown 20 people my breast and all of them could see it was bad but did nothing because of the breast specialist. The result came in and I didn’t have flu. They stopped antibiotics and would let me go the next morning but I chose to leave there and then.

Went to out of hour the next day, this morning and was correctly diagnosed with mastitis by a very shocked doctor. Given antibiotics.

My 3 month old struggled during the time away from me. He already had a cough and cold which got worse. Feeding is difficult again.

I cannot believe in this day and age a breastfeeding mother suffering like that can be left to just get worse because of one man’s misdiagnosis. This is the same hospital I birthed in and have taken my toddler to. Good experiences. I’m so shocked. Clearly they’ve concentrated on maternity and paediatric.