Mastitis, how did I get that?

The pain was awful. I kept on feeding baby, biting my lip from the anguishing pain. I just kept saying I can do this.
I was having this awful pain when I was nursing my son. It was tender to the touch, my pore nipple looked deformed and twice the size it should have. I just had no clue something was wrong. I just figured it was similar to the pain that you go through when you first start nursing a newborn baby.
The other day at work I started pumping and I filled the bottle full of blood. It freaked me out. It was already hurting really bad to touch and feed or pump but now I was bleeding.
Thomas is almost 10 months old. So what was going on?
I finally called a lactation consultant. Why I waited until now I will never know. She recommended I see the doctor because I probably had Mastitis.
Mastitis, what is that and how did I get it?
This all came about from when my son got sick. He was sick last week and didn't eat like he normally does. On a few occasions I let my breasts get pretty filled up and I didn’t pump. Don't make that mistake. I must have gotten a clogged up duct that then turned into Mastitis. I had never heard of this before. It was hurting really bad every time I fed Thomas. It would burn for the first couple minutes and then the pain would ease up. This is a bacterial infection in the breasts. The doctor put me on antibiotics. I am still sore but it is getting better every day. I would have probably ended up with flu like symptoms if I would have left this go on untreated. I wish now I wouldn't have waited so long to seek advice. I was amazed that through the process I could still nurse and I pushed through the pain for my baby. It is amazing what we do for our little ones.