Monday Morning, December 17

First, if you don't know what HIPEC is, please follow this link for an explanation -- it will only take about 4 minutes to watch, and until you do, you'll be pretty lost about Cam's situation. Nothing I explain below will make a whole lot of sense until you watch this:   

http://www.hipectreatment.com/index.php

Cam's current status:

Cam still has not urinated or passed gas since his surgery last Monday, December 10. The organs don't like to be messed with and disrupted, and his were all literally man-handled while Dr. Levine looked and palpated for little tumors. So, the kidneys and bowels are taking a long time to "wake up."  

Cam's had catheters off and on (mostly on) and in the past 24 hours has had less than 100 cc's of urine successfully extracted by the catheter (I should look at a conversion chart online, but my guesstimate of that amount by looking at the urine bag is that yesterday it collected half a cup at the most.) A grown man should be expelling more around 2 liters (8 cups).

Cam continues to be on oxygen and an IV. He's fed nutrition through a tube but is permitted to sip water or suck on ice chips.  

Part of his diaphragm was removed during surgery,which is apparently very painful. Further, when the necessary drainage tube in his chest was finally removed on Thursday (maybe Wednesday?), it deflated part of his lung. So, he's struggled to breathe all week, first because of the drainage tube's presence in his chest and its irritation of everything around it, and now because of a partially deflated lung.

The enormous swelling throughout his body also makes it difficult for him to breathe. He's puffier than the Pillsbury Doughboy most of the time. He received about 10 liters of fluid during the surgery, which would cause anyone swelling. The first few days, the catheter drained decent amounts of urine, but that urine output pretty much suddenly stopped and by Saturday, the catheter drained next to nothing, leading to his first dialysis treatment. 

We just had a visit from Dr. Levine, Cam's surgeon. We hadn't seen him since Friday night, although other members of the surgical team stop by on their rounds everyday at 6:30 a.m.

Here's the upshot of Dr. Levine's visit today:

Cam's white count is going up. Normal white count is 5,000. Someone who's had their spleen removed like Cam can expect to have white counts at 15-20,000 for a couple weeks. Cam's count is up to 30,000 this morning. Dr. Levine's ordering a CAT scan to make sure that we're not missing an infection or an abscess. 

You may know that up until now I've been putting updates on Facebook. I've left my profile open, so I think even people without a Facebook account should be able to look at my page and see not only what I'm posting but also how friends around the world are responding. I knew Cam was loved and respected, but it's been humbling to learn through public and private messages the incredible impact he's had on people that frankly, I've never even heard of. It seems that he's been living beautifully and soulfully his whole life and with everyone he's ever associated with.

Anyway, if you have been on Facebook, you probably know by now that the heated chemotherapy part of Cam's surgery damaged his kidneys. Just now Dr. Levine said that kidney damage doesn't happen very often with HIPEC, but when it does, it's very serious.

Dr. Levine went on to say that kidney function usually restores itself in a couple of months. Personally, he's only had one case of someone needing dialysis after HIPEC, and that person did not need it permanently.   

Cam's scheduled to have another round of dialysis in about 15 minutes. The physical therapist came by and helped Cam (who leaned on a walker) to make it about 4 feet down the hall and back -- way more moving than the minutes of walking in place or standing that he's managed so far. He's pretty exhausted now, and the dialysis will probably really wipe him out.

He's been pretty down this morning, although his presentation of being down still doesn't include anything close to complaining. His temperature was back up to 99.5, so we tried swabbing him down with cold washcloths again to cool him. As for being down: more of me praying over him and I kinda pushed watching something funny. Thank goodness for hulu.com and Modern Family.

Cam was trying to explain to Dr. Levine how over-stuffed he feels (and truly, his belly is much more distended than it was last night), and Dr. Levine reminded him that without the HIPEC he had last week, most people with Peritoneal Mesothelioma would have a prognosis of about a year.

We're lucky.

Thank you for the prayers and well wishes! We need them . . . and we also need humor. I think you can post comments here on the blog (I'm new to this), but if you aren't able to, send anything you wish Cam to receive to krishadeaver@gmail.com. And of course, I'll continue to read Cam every single wonderful post on Facebook.

Below is a place where you can enter your email address so that you receive a notification every time I post a new update here. I'll also put a notification on Facebook.

Mucho thanks to my sweet sister-at-heart, the uber-talented graphic designer Kristen Johnson for whipping together a cool blog design in no time flat. She has a full-time job, but I know she takes on free-lance jobs. Pretty sure she'll be okay with you having her contact info for those needs you may have to design cool things: kristenjohnson@gmail.com.

Thanks again everyone. We love you all!

P.S. We're all going to totally ignore any incoherence or type-o's in this or any future post, right?