2020-2021 Patient of the Year
She is 34 years old and is a Physician Assistant in Urgent Care. She lives in Minnesota with her husband Josh and yellow lab Logan. Camille loves spending time with her family and friends, as well as being outdoors walking, hiking and camping. Her favorite genres of music include country, folk, and bluegrass. She enjoys watching romantic comedies and home improvement TV shows and her favorite books are thrillers and romance stories. Camille met her husband Josh in high school after he moved
to the area and married in 2010 after dating for seven years.
She is currently on disability leave while recovering from surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments and hopes to return to work when she is able. Camille was diagnosed with stage IV-B squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue on October 1 last year. She underwent surgery on October 17th at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale, Minnesota.
Her surgery entailed the removal of the tumor and in addition: a left partial glossectomy [the surgical removal of part of the tongue]; left neck dissection; open tracheostomy, and repair of her tongue with a left radial forearm free flap. Then she had a skin graft to her left forearm harvested from her thigh. In addition, an NG Tube [is a special tube that carries food and medicine to the stomach through the nose] was placed in her nose after the initial surgery for three weeks. She spent eight days in the hospital before being discharged. She had a tracheostomy for two weeks and a feeding tube for three weeks post-op.
While healing from surgery she delayed post-operative treatments of radiation and chemotherapy for three days to complete fertility treatments although they do not have children yet, they hope to in the future. On November 18th Camille underwent surgery to have a Power Port inserted in her chest for use during prospective chemotherapy treatments, hydration, and blood draws which began on December 5th. She had radiation five days a week for six weeks and then was administered Cisplatin during chemotherapy [ two treatments every 21 days ]. Her chemotherapy oncologist canceled her last treatment because she began having tinnitus and hearing loss, a common, but a potentially permanent side effect of the medicine.
Camille is currently recovering at home with her family for the next month. She is having hydration
therapy three times a week and for the next two weeks will continue to have follow-up appointments
with her oncologists.