FAYETTEVILLE, Ark — The family of the University of Arkansas sophomore hospitalized in August with E. coli is sharing an exciting update about her health.
The Honey family says their daughter, Camille, is now off dialysis after she became violently ill and went into kidney failure because of the foodborne illness just weeks ago before classes even began.
Camille's blood work came back this week showing that her kidneys are healing and functioning at about 34 percent.
It was enough for doctors to say that she no longer needed to be on dialysis, which is something she could have been on for years or even the rest of her life.
5NEWS talked with her mom, Kris, in an interview that aired on September 7th.
She said at the time she was fearful that her daughter was going to die after rushing her to the hospital.
“I thought she was going to die last week, there was one night where she was barely breathing,” Kris said. “She was using every muscle in her body to breathe. I thought she was gonna die.”
Camille is not back to perfect health yet as she's still being treated for blood clots and has to be carefully monitored.
Camille, who earned a scholarship to the University of Arkansas, returned to campus last Friday and is back in class with a reduced course load for the semester.
The Honey family says they want to thank everyone who prayed for their daughter during a terrifying ordeal.
Kris Honey says that it was the documentary about food safety on Netflix called Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food that caused her to suspect her daughter was suffering from an E. coli infection before anyone knew that there was an outbreak.
5NEWS hasn't heard any new updates this week from the Arkansas Department of Health about their investigation into the source, but they did rule out the U of A dining halls.
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