Rough Week Gives Way to Baby Steps

Hi, Everyone --

It's been a busy week.  Thanks for your patience about getting an update . . . 

Monday, Dec. 17

• CT scan of chest & intestines.  Purpose: make sure his lungs aren't wet and intestines aren't bloated because his white count is too high, even for someone who's just had his spleen removed
• Dialysis
• These 2 events took from 2:30-10:30 p.m.  Transport people come wearing their yellow and black scrubs, help him get on a stretcher, wheel him to one place, put him on yet another bed, doctors perform a procedure, then the transport people switch him back to a stretcher and finally to his own bed . . . and then the Dialysis department has a bed available . . . and so the whole bed-swapping begins again.  It was very painful and exhausting.
• Really rough night.  Cam shares with me (wife Krish) that since his first dialysis Saturday night, he's felt that everything in his body is completely shutting down.

Tuesday, Dec. 18

• Monday's CT scans revealed fluid by liver and where spleen had been.  
• Back to Radiology department: they do an ultrasound-guided aspiration of these fluids.  This means they use a long needle to get to the fluid and begin drawing it out.  Then they insert a drainage tube in each side of his chest; the tubes drain into a fluid collection bag on the outside of each side of his chest.
• White count is up to 31,000.  We're praying fluids found in the CT scans aren't from infection.
• Cam's bowels begin to function for first time.
• Dialysis -- 3 hours, including removal of 4 pounds of fluid.
• Cam frequently reports having constant and lengthy deja vu. 
• Cam's mom works magic and gets a bed that he can be transported in and weighed in (weigh-in's are necessary before and after dialysis).

Wednesday, Dec. 19

• White count mostly the same: 31,900.
• In and out catheter: nurse is able to extract 100 cc's (1/2 cup) of urine for the past 48+ hours.  Urine production is a sign as to whether the kidneys are working . . . so "some is better than none."
• Dialysis: 3 hours of isolated ultra filtration -- this means they only pull fluid off him, as opposed to dialyzing him, which is when they remove the toxins from the blood like a kidney would do.  They're able to pull 8 more pounds of fluid off him by doing only isolated ultra filtration.
• Hemoglobin is low -- 6.6, but should be 12 or 13.  During dialysis they give him a blood transfusion to boost his hemoglobin.
• Because bowels seem to function, he's finally permitted something more than sips of water: he's approved to have clear fluids, then all fluids, and so 9 days after surgery he has broth, juice, etc.

Thursday, Dec. 20

• Cam makes it to bathroom to sponge bathe mostly by himself for first time, 25-foot oxygen tube is necessary for the big venture.
• Dialysis: 3 hours.  In last hour, I (Krisha) am called from waiting room to visit per Cam's request (they only allow 5-10 minutes.)  I jump out of sleeping on a loveseat, visit Cam for 2 minutes, detect signs of fainting and request help -- each time I black out, I'm propped upright again.  Once I'm taken to the waiting room I ask to lie down, don't get to, and I barf instead.
• Security comes, tells me that I have to go home or to Emergency Room in case I have the flu.
• I go to the Secu Family House where our moms have been staying.  I sleep for most of the next 23 hours.

Friday, Dec. 21

• Cam gets "perma cath" for dialysis.  The temporary port in his jugular vein was sensitive to movement, but a permanent catheter couldn't be inserted until cultures taken from extracted fluid by liver had been given 2-3 days to reveal if there was infection or not.  No infection!  The perma cath was inserted below the skin in his upper chest.  He can go home with it when the time comes, and it can remain in him for weeks or months, and it allows quick hook up for dialysis.
• During perma cath procedure, Cam's also given a PICC line which will help with all the times they draw blood, since finding veins for IV and blood draws has been extremely challenging.
• Drainage tubes on each side of his chest are removed.
• Feeding tube removed.   This was great joy to Cam, since he's had so much trouble breathing; he hated the tube taking air space up his nose and down his throat.
• And . . .

wait for it . . .

He peed!  100 cc's, the old-fashioned male way.

Dear kidneys, we love you.  Please do more to show us that you'll come back to us.