At the ER

The doctor has sent us to UCLA's ER. He wants Cam admitted to the hospital.

Cam spiked a fever (102.7), followed by insane chills, after what may or may not have been an allergic reaction to the dialysis filter this afternoon.

There was also lots of vomiting and a near faint during the 90 minutes of what was supposed to be a 3-and-a-half-hour dialysis session today. He's never vomited during dialysis before.

Dr. Copen, our nephrologist (kidney doctor) was making rounds at dialysis today -- thank goodness, since that only happens once a week. He thinks the fever suggests it's an infection. He says that the dialysis ports that go in the chest, like Cam's, can cause infection. (The other kind of port is in the arm, are permanent and for people whll be on dialysis permanently.)

Dr. Copen says they may end up removing the port in his chest at the hospital. And if they determine he has an infection, he'll of course need antibiotics.

The nurse checking him in here at the ER suggested it could be the flu. Cam said he'd wondered the same thing.

The other news Dr. Copen had for us is the result of lab tests for the fluid that was taken off Cam's lung last week: "atypical messothelial cells."  That's how Cam's original appendectomy pathology report was termed . . . the one that was eventually diagnosed as Mesothelioma after the pathologies were sent to expert labs. I asked Dr. Copen, don't we just need to send these "atypical mesothelial cells" to an expert lab -- like the Cedars lab did after the appendectomy -- to confirm if it's Mesothelioma? Dr. Copen says that the problem is that when they first found Cam's cancer, they had tissue (pathology); now they just have fluid cells. I guess it makes it harder and they would need to take tissue at some point, "perhaps."

Dr. Copen had Cam get another chest x-ray earlier this week, and it shows the lung has fluid on it again. Not as much fluid as last time before they drained it, but I saw the x-rays, and it looks like almost as much. Dr. Copen says they'll likely need to drain it.

We got settled into a room here at UCLA's ER pretty quickly. They've begun poking and prodding and taking x-rays, but not much else yet.
I suspect it will take all night to get him admitted to the hospital . . . and I have no idea how long the hospital stay will be. Your guess is as good as mine.

Thanks for prayers and positive thoughts.  Knowing that we have all you behind us makes ALL the difference.