Silence Killed the Dinosaurs by Lucy Grove-Jones
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  • Danger Boob. Breastfeeding Part 2

    Got Milk? Breastfeeding Part 1.

    I did not think I was the sort of person to give their boobs nicknames until I breastfed, but then each of them developed its own personality quirks and method of trying to kill me or my baby.

    illustration of comic Lucy lifting her top to reveal boobs with 'Hello my name is stickers' covering the nipple area. According to the labels the left boob is called 'the Gusher' and the right is called 'DANGER boob'

    The gusher went after the baby. Newborns are small and weak. They need to feed often to get bigger and stronger. The gusher would, well

    illustration of comic-lucy sitting in an armchair trying to breastfeed her baby. The baby is crying instead of feeding, from behind the baby where comic-lucy's boob is a arches jet of white liquid is squirting onto the floor. Comic Lucy says 'drat'.

    Gush.

    The milk came out too fast and would overwhelm my baby. She would splutter and cough and pull away, but the milk would not stop and would spray her in the face. She would get upset and not want to feed much because the whole experience kinda sucked. And, you know what, fair.

    Danger boob came after me.

    It blocked a lot. Did you know milk ducts can block? Because I did not before all this. Turns out they can, and one of my boobs is really, really good at it. Which was awful, because blocks in your ducts mean the milk just sits around. And you know what happens when milk sits around.

    A carton of milk and a glass of milk on a bench. Smell lines radiate from both, and the content of the glass looks lumpy

    Bacteria likes milk that’s sitting around. If it gets into a lactating boob, you end up with mastitis, an infection of the breast.

    Most people who get mastitis have it happen within the first few weeks of breastfeeding when the milk supply is working itself out and when the baby is learning to latch and suck properly and isn’t always strong enough to clear the breast.

    Most people.

    SPOILER ALERT

    Comic with two panels. First panel. Comic Lucy is in a hospital bed looking unwell. A nurse asks her 'So, how many weeks post partum are you?'. Panel 2. Comic Lucy replies '10 months.' The nurse looks baffled.

    But I’m getting ahead of myself.

    The recommended way to clear blocked ducts is to apply heat and massage the area before and during feeds to get everything soft and flowing and then switch to cold after the feed to reduce inflammation and settle things back down.

    That didn’t work for me.

    I fell through the cracks in the system. My GP fought her hardest for me, but everyone who could help me kept going on leave and when they didn’t receptionists in the public health system refused to let me through the doors for appointments even when the specialist literally sat on the other side of the door waiting for me to show up for the appointment (true story). I kept up the heat packs and massage—but it rarely cleared my blocks. Someone recommended different feed positions. I tried the hell that is dangle feeding (DON’T) which damaged my nipples. Someone recommended rose geranium essential oils. Someone recommended baths. Someone recommended an electric toothbrush. Facebook’s targeted advertising tried to get me to buy ‘lactation massagers’ in ‘comfortable ergonomic shapes’ that looked like re-branded vibrators to me.

    I don’t know how to express how exhausted I was. My life was a fugue state of massage, heat packs, feeding, cold packs, stress, repeat. There was nothing else.

    Eventually, finally, I got ultrasound treatment from a wonderful physiotherapist who was not on leave, who made sure I was looked after and who had a wonderful receptionist who always made appointments as soon as possible and, you know, let me through the door. I’m not a doctor. This is not medical advice. I know ultrasound treatment for blocked ducts is still in the ‘eh, maybe it’ll work, I mean, can’t hurt’ stage of research. I have heard it definitely doesn’t work for some people. But it worked for me when nothing else did.

    The blocks cleared. I did not get mastitis. My milk production settled down. My boobs stopped trying to murder us. My baby fed and put on weight.

    A doctor is weighing a baby on a set of scales. The doctor says 'She's doing great!'. Comic Lucy, looking run down and exhausted, is collapsed in a nearby chair and says 'Thank God.'

    And that was how it went for months.

    When breastfeeding works, it is lovely. Your baby is peaceful and you are snuggling together. Also, it’s cheaper than formula and HELLA CONVENIENT. Baby hungry while you’re out and about? All good you packed a snack … in your bra. Baby struggling to nap? Bring out the boob. Fussing for no reason? Boob.

    But just when I was starting to trust the system, it all fell to pieces again. Which didn’t look great from my perspective.

    Comic with 2 panels. Both show the perspective from someone breastfeeding. In the first panel, a baby is suckling happily. In the second, the baby looks up, smiling happily, showing two teeth and blood all around it's mouth and smeared on the breastfeeder as well.

    I don’t really know why it all went to hell. I suspect it was something to do with my baby’s teeth coming through—top lateral incisors before the central, giving some strong Count Dracula vibes—and changing her latch, resulting in both significant nipple trauma (therefore blood) and poor drainage.

    The upshot was, I got mastitis.

    Three times.

    The first two times weren’t great, but they weren’t too bad either. Both times, as soon as I realised I had a fever, I got antibiotics from a doctor and started improving.

    The third time I got mastitis was different. For a start, it happened on a public holiday. All the doctor’s surgeries were closed, so I went into the ER feeling silly to be one of Those People who show up at the ER with a non-ER problem.

    Comic with two panels. In both, comic-Lucy is in a hospital bed talking to a nurse. In the first panel, comic Lucy says 'I'm sorry to take time from a really sick person.' In the second panel the nurse says 'Honey, you are a really sick person'

    She was right.

    When I got up that morning there had been a streak of red on my breast. This is a pretty standard mastitis thing. By the time the doctor in the ER did a physical exam a couple of hours later, 80% of my breast was boiled lobster red. I didn’t just have mastitis, it had somehow spread and become cellulitis too.

    And I was SICK.

    I was so cold I couldn’t bear it, so cold I must be dying, but when I asked the nurse if I could have extra blankets she said no. My temperature was, in fact, way too high. Instead she offered me an icepack. 

    Over the next week my skin was gruesome. If you’re feeling morbid and you want to google cellulitis to get a vibe for what this looked like, you need to look on the bad end of that scale, and then add a bit more imagination. It was not just RED RED RED but kind of stretched and shiny and almost see through. I got hectic blisters where my bra rubbed it. And it was actually worse than that, but I’m trying not to be too disgusting by talking about pus. Basically, imagine hell, then cram it into a boob. That’s what I was working with. The only positives were I did not develop an abscess or gangrene.

    My GP got my hospital discharge notes and immediately called me to come in so she could check me over as well.

    She looked at my breast and said

    Lucy sits on an examination table, top pulled down to show a breast that is red with a name tag sticker over the nipple that sys 'hello my name is danger boob.' A doctor is examining it and saying: 'I have never seen anything like this before'

    So she called the lactation specialist in to get a second opinion.

    Lucy sits on an examination table, top pulled down to show a breast that is red with a name tag sticker over the nipple that sys 'hello my name is danger boob.' A doctor is examining it and saying: 'I have never seen anything like this before'. A second doctor (the same one from the last illustration) says 'RIGHT?!'

    According to official medical guidelines, all changes to the breast due to mastitis should be back to normal after two weeks. But after two weeks, I still needed antibiotics because the infection hadn’t even properly cleared yet. I was sent to a breast specialist, who said

    Lucy sits on an examination table, top pulled down to show a breast that is red with a name tag sticker over the nipple that sys 'hello my name is danger boob.' A new doctor is examining it and saying: 'I have never seen anything like this before'

    She saw me three times trying to get the infection to clear properly before admitting defeat and sending me to an infectious disease specialist, i.e., the local version of Dr House MD. He was a very intense fellow who said

    Lucy sits on an examination table, top pulled down to show a breast that is red with a name tag sticker over the nipple that sys 'hello my name is danger boob.' Another doctor is examining it and saying: 'Why did you get sent here? That's fine.'

    He decided it was basically gone at that point and he would be shocked if there was any redness left after another day or two. Even though it had never been properly cultured for one reason or another (a milk culture was done but the bacteria dodged it by shifting to cellulitis before that), he didn’t see the point in worrying about that now as it was basically gone.

    But he was wrong. There was redness left after another day. There was redness left after another week.

    I ended up at the beginning in my GPs office again, and she put me back on the broad-spectrum antibiotics to finally kick it. We finally kicked it, but my breast never entirely went back to normal.

    Comic with 2 panels. In the first, comic Lucy sits on an examination table, top pulled down to show a breast that is red with a name tag sticker over the nipple that sys 'hello my name is danger boob.' A doctor is examining it and saying: 'Yeah, I think that's just scarring now. Also you need a mommogram to make sure it wasn't sneaky cancer.' Second panel is a zoomed in illustration of the breast, now wearing 8-bit shades. From the name tag 'DANGER Boob' is clearly visible.

    It was not sneaky cancer, at least.

    Boobs: 2. Lucy: 0.

    5 comments on Danger Boob. Breastfeeding Part 2
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  • Toilet Adventures

    comic with nine panels. 1. Comic Lucy sits on the toilet. 2. The cat arrives and looks at her. 3. The cat is on her lap and comic Lucy looks unhappy. 4. A toddler runs happily toward them. 5. The toddler pulls the cat's tail, the cat is distressed, comic Lucy struggles to separate them from her position on the toilet with undies around her ankles. 6. The cat is on comic Lucy's head and the toddler implores comic Lucy to lift her up. 7. Comic Lucy sits on the toilet, happy toddler on her lap, annoyed cat on her head. 8. The cat slips, digging in his claws to comic Lucy's face so he can stay on her head, meanwhile the toddler is distracted by grabbing the toilet paper. 9. The cat is back on comic Lucy's head, which is covered in scratches, comic Lucy reaches desperately for the toddler, but the toddler is already carrying the toilet paper away and out of reach.

    This is, I regret to inform you, based on not just one true story but many. Fortunately we seem to be reaching the other side of the tail-pulling phase, at least.

    1 comment on Toilet Adventures
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  • Shaved My Legs

    Comic with three panels. In all, comic Lucy stands with her partner. First panel: Comic lucy says, with evident excitement, 'Look! I shaved my legs!' In the second panel, small spots of blood can be seen on comic Lucy's legs. Her partner says 'I guess you're out of practice since the baby. In the final panel, there is more blood, it is dripping into little puddles. Comic Lucy says 'What makes you say that?'

    No, really, what makes you say that.

    I wear jeans a lot more these days. And leggings. Leggings are the best invention possibly ever. Technology peaked at stretch fabric.

    2 comments on Shaved My Legs
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  • Holidays are Over

    Comic with 2 panels. In the first, comic-lucy walks toward her desk saying 'Holidays are over, time to get back to it.' In the second panel comic-Lucy is sitting at her desk, laptop open, and says 'I've forgotten how to do everything'

    ‘I’ll just give myself a little break over Christmas,’ I said. ‘I’ll get right back into the swing of things straight away,’ I said. ‘Relaxing is a good thing,’ I said.

    I guess there’s nothing for it but to head to the hills and live off the land.

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  • The Star

    Comic with two panels. In the first, comic-Lucy is looking at a disheveled christmas tree with a cat sitting on the top. She says 'Where's the star?'. In the second panel the cat responds "I'm the star. Obviously.'

    Merry Catmas to all who observe!

    Although actually the cat has been very well behaved about the tree this year. It is the toddler pulling all the ornaments down so she can play with them.

    1 comment on The Star
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  • Got Milk? Breastfeeding Part 1

    Nothing can prepare you for waking up in the soft, glowy morning after having your first child—that one in the little plastic-walled bassinet next to your bed, wrapped up like an angelic bug in a hospital baby blanket—to the brick-wall reality that you are definitely already doing everything wrong.

    Three panels of a comic. In all, comic Lucy is in a hospital bed, a bassinet is next to her with a sleeping baby, a midwife has come in and turned the light on. First panel: comic Lucy is lying down, groggy, rubbing eyes. The midwife has a clipboard and is saying 'Wait, you let the baby sleep for 4 hours without a feed?'. Panel 2: Comic Lucy sits up, but still looks groggy, and says 'I guess? What's the time?'. Panel 3, The midwife makes a note on the clipboard and says 'Hmmm... today we will be learning to feed on demand.'

    On demand feeding means you feed the baby whenever they want it. You are supposed to learn their cues—open mouth, moving arms, turning head—so you know they’re hungry before they actually start crying. Apparently, I was useless at it.

    First three panels of a comic. In all, Comic lucy sits on the edge of a bed holding a baby and is conversing with a midwife. First panel: comic Lucy says 'Doesn't that mean if she sleeps fo 4 hours without demanding a feed, I should let her?'. Panel 2: the midwife says 'No! They need feeding more often than that!' Panel 3: Lucy says "So...for next time... how long do I let her sleep before waking her for a feed?'
    The comic continues. In the first panel, the midwife says 'You don't! There's no need to wake a healthy sleeping baby! She'll wake you when she needs a feed!' Panel 2, comic lucy says '...but ... what?'. Panel 3, the midwife says 'Clearly you need a lot of help'

    This is the early stages of motherhood. Is the baby okay? Why’d they do that? Are you bad at everything? All the advice seems contradictory and confusing, but maybe it isn’t and comprehending basic instructions is beyond you because you’re too physically and emotionally messed up from staying up all night in agony, pain meds, having your genitals cut open and stitched back together, losing 1.3L of blood, being pooed on by the small squidgy human you went through all this for, coming down off pregnancy hormones and going back up on breastfeeding hormones? Did you just pee your disposable blood-soaked undies a little bit?

    Who knows. Certainly not me. But the stakes are high.

    The first few days of breastfeeding were awful. I couldn’t get the position right, my baby struggled to latch, when she did latch it hurt like her tongue was covered in needles, and she wouldn’t stay on very long.

    All that was before my milk came in. To begin with, you only make something called colostrum. There isn’t much of it, and it’s just to keep the baby going until approximately day three when your body starts pumping out the real deal. The transition involves a tsunami of hormones that make you weepy and anxious, turn your breasts to a mass of engorged lumpy nightmare, and roast you like a big sweaty chicken.

    For me, the first wave was pure anxiety.

    First three panels of a comic. In all panels, comic Lucy is sitting up in a hospital bed, a sleeping baby in a basinet beside her. A midwife stands in the open doorway. Panel one: comic lucy is grabbing her chest saying, says 'HELP I'M GETTING CANCER THERE ARE LUMPS EVERWHERE'. Panel 2, the midwife says 'It's 3am. Get some rest.' Panel 3, comic Lucy says 'I CAN'T I'LL MISS THE NEXT FEED'
    The comic continues with three more panels with the same scene. In panel 1, the midwife says 'She'll wake you. Just sleep.' In panel 2, comic Lucy says 'NOW I MIGHT BE HAVING A HEART ATTACK?!?'. In panel 3, the midwife says 'No'
    The comic continues with a final three panels. In panel one, the midwife is turning off the light and closing the door. Panel 2 is completely black. Panel 3 is completely black except for comic Lucy's panicking face drawn in white in the darkness.

    Later, the depression hit. In a twist surprising no one, I was flagged early on as high risk for post partum depression (previous history of both anxiety and depression, previous pregnancy losses and pregnancy related trauma, life upheaval during pregnancy which I haven’t talked about here but essentially my little family was stuck with only my patreon income (lol) for five months but it turned out fine don’t stress, etc, etc).

    It was the weirdest bout of depression I ever experienced, because I was happy too. My life was exactly what I wanted it to be, and I truly and honestly felt amazing about that and so lucky. I had no trouble bonding with my daughter, who was and is still the most wonderful, fascinating thing on the planet and probably off the planet too. But simultaneously I felt worthless and hopeless and I would just walk around dripping tears like a sopping dishcloth. It wasn’t a ‘I should be happy but I’m not so I feel guilty’. I legitimately was happy. Just also broken.

    And breastfeeding affected me in the weirdest ways. You’re supposed to get a surge of oxytocin with it that makes you relaxed and happy, and I definitely got that later on when it all settled down, but for the first couple of months anytime I breastfed my insides would drop away and I would fall into this grey canyon of empty darkness.

    This is all to say, hormones are weird, man.

    And, disclaimer, I absolutely got help. Like I said, I’ve had mental health problems in the past and knew this was likely to be a rough time for me. I pre-emptively set myself up in therapy and the moment things started going wonky I went to my GP and we sorted out medication we knew from previous experience would help me. I already had a playlist of things to do when it all went to hell—start small, music, company, walks, TELL SOMEONE etc, etc—that I immediately activated.

    The great thing about having had depression for most of my life is that I have had lots of practice implementing those things even when getting out of bed feels like too much effort.

    Take your meds and stay in therapy, kids

    Because I lost all that blood after giving birth, I had to stay in the hospital a few days, and in hospital we hadn’t been allowed many visitors thanks to the great panini, so the day we went home all the new grandparents came over. My parents very kindly and with amusement brough a large cabbage, which is supposed to help with breast discomfort somehow.

    I remember going to the bedroom to feed the baby, and just being caps lock DONE. My partner came in, and I told him the baby had finished and could go out to see people again, but I would not be. I informed him that I would be lurking in bed with our big, chunky lunchbox icepack shoved down my sweaty, miserable cleavage and with cabbage leaves layered in my suddenly-too-small bra like the seashell cups of some sort of farty-bathwater mermaid.

    He said fair enough, and he took the baby to distract the guests.

    I lurked as described, and wept for no reason.

    I couldn’t work out why I felt so awful, other than everything was awful. Bleeding, stitched, anaemic, exhausted, sore, lumpy, sweaty, leaky, shivery, and cabbaged.

    Comic lucy prostrate in bed, semi wrapped in a blanket. Her chest is all over lumpy, with an ice back and cabbage leaves sticking out her shirt. Smells lines radiate from her. She looks very tired and stressed.

    The concept of an equal partnership in child-rearing is lovely in theory. And, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of it both in theory and in practice. It’s just that there are some areas that are impossible to split. E.g., pregnancy. If you don’t have the bits for it, you can’t help much there. And even if you do both have the bits for it, it’s not like you can switch partway through and do half each. Same with breastfeeding.

    If you’re the partner, you do still have a job. You’re the Sam Gamee of this breastfeeding quest. The breastfeeder is Frodo. The baby is the one ring to rule them all. Your job description is that bit near the end where Frodo is caps lock DONE and Sam is all ‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you’ and then picks Frodo up and carries him and the ring together up the volcano.

    Just stop the analogy before Gollum jumps out and starts biting off fingers and they chuck the baby in the lava.

    You are in charge of bring heat packs and cold packs as required, keeping the feeder hydrated and fed, changing the baby, general garden maintenance … and hypothermia prevention.

    Comic with three panels. In all, comic lucy is in bed, wrapped in a blanket, with cabbage leaves and and ice pack shoved down her front. Her partner stands nearby holding their peacefully sleeping baby. Panel one, comic Lucy says 'I don't know why I'm so cold.' Panel 2, her partner says 'uhh ... is that a huge ice-pack right against your heart'. Panel 3, comic lucy says '... is that wrong?'
    Comic Lucy's partner supports her with one arm while holding the baby in the other. They are walking toward a steaming shower. Comic Lucy says 'This will be a funny story one day.' Her partner, who looks very unimpressed, says 'Hilarious. Get in the shower.'

    Turns out some of why I was feeling so absolutely dreadful and shivery was that I had managed to ridiculous myself halfway to dying of exposure while in bed wrapped in a doona.

    Boobs: 1. Lucy: 0.

    7 comments on Got Milk? Breastfeeding Part 1
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  • True Crime

    Three panel comic. In the first panel, comic Lucy is wearing headphones. Text reads: "From true crime podcasts I've learned..." second panel text reads: '... people always first assume dead boeies are just mannequins" image shows a dead body lying next to a mannequin. Final panel: comic lucy drags a dead body behind a mannequin factory to where there are bins full of broken, discarded mannequins,

    ***********

    What podcasts do you listen to? Any good true crime ones?

    6 comments on True Crime
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  • The Bird

    3 panels of a comic. Panel 1: A bird flies over comic Lucy and her toddler, doing a bird poo which narrowly misses Lucy. Panel 2: Lucy calls out 'Missed!'. Panel 3: the toddler toddles back into frame carrying something.
    3 panel comic. Panel 1: Comic Lucy bends down to take whatever her toddler is bringing her and says 'What's this...?'. Panel 2: Comic Lucy looks at what she is holding, it is bird poo, while her toddler toddles off in delight. Panel 3: Comic Lucy is still holding the bird poo. The bird flies back over flipping the bird and wearing sunglasses

    ***********

    Betrayed by my own blood.

    I’m updating my Patreon tiers! Now if you join at the Triceratops tier or higher you will get a sticker pack in the mail. They are very cool. It would be awesome if any patrons out there who haven’t already could pop on over to Patreon and update their shipping details so I can mail them out!

    3 comments on The Bird
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  • Unexpected Things Babies Like

    A comic. Title reads: Unexpecting things babies like. Four panels. First panel: whisks. It depicts a baby happily chomping on a whisk. Second panel: pictures of other babies. It depicts a baby

    I completely expected for them to like power points, grabbing the cat’s tail and throwing themselves from heights. I knew about those things. Following a crawling baby around stopping her from repeatedly headbutting every solid object she came across was not something I expected to be doing at all, let alone often.

    Big thank you to the friend who put me onto whisks as the best impromptu baby entertainment object.

    6 comments on Unexpected Things Babies Like
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  • Double Standards

    Two panels of a comic. Comic Lucy and a friend sit facing each other on dining chairs holding cups of tea. In the first panel, the friend says 'I don't feel like anything I'm doing is good enough'. In the second panel, comic Lucy replies with 'You're doing amazing just by being you!'
    Two panels of a comic. Two Comic Lucys sit facing each other on dining chairs holding cups of tea. In the first panel, the one of the comic Lucys says 'I don't feel like anything I do is good enough'. In the second panel, the other comic Lucy is standing holding her chair over her head, ready to beat the first comic Lucy (who is cowering on the floor) with it

    It’s okay everyone, I’m in therapy, therefore this can be read as socially-acceptable self-deprecating snippet of entertainment and not a poor attempt to muffle the scream for constant validation that bubbles up inside me in ever smaller intervals that I am slowly becoming aware will never, ever be sated.

    Show this comic to someone who likes tea. Or chairs.

    9 comments on Double Standards
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