#ZackStrong

Hello my name Arivia Smith , the proud mother of Zack. Zack has chronic kidney disease since he has been born. 9/28/23 he got a kidney transplant he was on dialysis for 2 years before that. As you know when you get a transplant you have to take immune suppressant so that your body will not reject the new organ. Because of that he has a weak immune system. We caught the flu together the day after Christmas I was able to recover fully , he unfortunately still had a cough a lil but was fine . 1/19/24 the worst day of my life , my baby was sick January 17 and 18 but we was thinking maybe just some left over of the flu when I say we ( me and his doctors) they didn’t want me to take him to the hospital to expose him of other germs I agree I didn’t want that to happen either , I treated like a cold I gave him meds , plenty of fluids he didn’t have a temperature. 1/19 I went to his room the next morning to do my thing for for him ( take his temp , take his blood pressure, and give him his medicine) when I checked his temperature it was 93.3 , I knew something was wrong I called his doctor, the nurse answered and they stated eat her consult with his doctor , she called me back 30 sec later and stated yes take him to the hospital immediately. I still wasn’t thinking to much of it I mean I knew something was off but nothing like what was going on , so my mom took him to the er for me I work from home so I decided to clean his room really good and clock in for work however I didn’t even get to take my first call before my mom called and told me they were taking him back to the “emergency” room with all the supplies in it while on the phone with my mom I was getting his labs thru MyChart and everything was low , I mean everything. I clock out from work and me and my husband made our way to the hospital when we got there my baby couldn’t breathe, even though he couldn’t breathe was fighting back , the nurses and doctors are moving around us fast . I asked the doctor what going on she stated “ he will not be breathing on his own for to much longer” my heart dropped at this point im in a panic, 5 minutes later the doctor scream no pulse start cpr , this happened a total of 4 times , they didn’t believe my baby was going to make it. We were in our home town and they just didn’t have the resources however they was able to put him on the ecmo life support as they transferred him to Levine children hospital where he got his transplant. He as the ecmo going through his heart to support his heart and lungs. He remained on heart and lung ecmo for 2 weeks til he developed a bad bleed out his chest however his heart had fully recovered and could come off the ecmo for heart and lung. He now remains on the ecmo for lungs only. We finally knew that he rsv , streptococcus in his blood and went into sepsis stock. With all that his organs took a hit. We are taking it one day at a time. Zack has a long road to recovery. Of course me and husband is not leaving his side given that we live 2 hrs away from where he is , we can not work at this time. We have 4 other children 9, 6, 2 , & 11 months Zack is our oldest. We’re asking for donations as we go through this tough time. Nothing is to small. Thank you God bless #Zackstrong