Unknown Lung Disease

My mom is been in the ICU for 2 weeks with an unknown lung disease. Her chest exrays and cat scans show nothing. She has no lumps or evidence of cancer, her lymph nodes are normal. She is retaining fluid in her lungs.

A bronchioscopy was done as well as a heart catherization. Her heart is fine and after the bronchioscopy we were told she had cancer in her lungs, probably breast cancer (she had both breast and lung cancers last year, but was thought to be in remission). They gave her chemo on Saturday. On Tuesday, when we were supposed to learn what type of cancer, the pathologists changed their opinion and said it was not cancer. The slides were then sent to the Mayo Clinic, results inconclusive.

Mom's condition weakening, we choose to have her undergo steroid therapy rather than undergo a lung biopsy which everyone involved feels she would not survive. She has been on a broad spectrum antibiotic for most of her stay in the ICU. She was just placed on bactrim in addition to the steroid therapy.

She has been on 100% oxygen for most of her stay. She is not eating much and is not being given fluids or food regularly, except what she can eat (maybe 750-1000 calories a day). She is diabetic and although she has never been on insulin, they have been giving it because her sugar's unstable.

I am sending this e-mail in the hopes of finding someone with any thoughts or ideas that her doctors may not have come up with. Right now we are throwing darts in the dark, but she is way too weak to undergo the biopsy.

Any thoughts or recommendations would be appreciated.

[National Jewish]

This is a very difficult situation.  Until your mom

[starion]

Since the pathology results were inconclusive, has there been an effort to send the slides to another lab, like AFIP (which is well-respected & has substantial experience--Armed Forces Insitute of Pathology)?  This could be helpful in finding out whether she does or doesn't have cancer & more details.
Best of luck to you and your family.
Aloha,
Starion