“Here’s some facts about Zach:

1. He loves to play video games, especially on his computer. His brother helped him build a nice gaming system.

2. He really likes Airsoft, he hasn’t played on a field with other players but he has shot at targets and he really enjoys customizing his own airsoft guns.

3. Zach’s favorite vacation we have ever took was on a cruise, he played basketball a lot and really enjoyed the freedom he had to roam around.

Zach was first diagnosed with cancer in 9/11/2023. He had a rare cancer called malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor. (MPNST) the tumors were on his cervical spine and wrapped around major arteries and pushed his esophagus and trachea to the left slightly. He had chemo and radiation which was unsuccessful in shrinking the tumors so he had to have multiple surgeries. The hospital at home couldn’t do the surgeries due to all the complications involved. His oncologist reached out to multiple hospitals but only one said to send him up, John Hopkins in Baltimore.

On February 18th, 2024 Zach had his first surgery. This was to remove the tumors from his spine, the second surgery was on February 22nd, this was to remove the other tumor that was wrapped around his major arteries and located under his collar bone. The neurosurgeon gave us a list of risks involved with his surgery, loss of right arm, paralyzed right arm, major stroke, major blood loss or death. The surgeries were a complete success even though the risks were high.

In July of 2024 Zach had to have his cervical spine fused together, from C2 -T2 the tumors had wreaked havoc and left his spine weak. He healed from all of that and had a few months at home.

In October I had noticed he was extremely pale, even his lips and was getting tired easily, wanting to nap which he is normally not a napper. I got in touch with his oncologist at home and she had me being him in to do labs. They called me back not even a hour later asking me to bring him in to the office because he needed blood. That day he was transfused 2 bags of blood and they made him an appointment for his first bone marrow biopsy the following Monday. That night after his biopsy his oncologist called me multiple times, she begged me to take Zach to the hospital, she had already made arrangements and he already had a room. That’s the day we found out Zach had therapy related AML (acute myeloid leukemia) October 7th, 2024. He had his first treatment for AML at our home hospital, he spent 7 weeks inpatient. The worst of that treatment was he had gotten mucositis. John Hopkins wanted us to come to them for the 2nd induction treatment to be able to prepare for his transplant while he was there. On December 5th we went to John Hopkins for his second induction treatment. (This was by far the scariest out of everything) we spent Christmas together in the hospital and everything was fine until December 26th. He woke up and wasn’t himself, his speech was slurred and was getting confused. The doctors coded him and got him down to a MRI immediately and it showed swelling and bleeding in his brain.

After 2 weeks in the PICU with 1,000 mg of steroids a day for six days straight and multiple other treatments he was himself again. The doctors at first didn’t know what it was, said they were throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him. They had told us after the second day in the PICU if he didn’t show improvement he wasn’t going to, which was the absolute worst thing any mother could hear. Zach ended up having the worst methotrexate toxicity they had seen from a lumbar puncture with chemo. He was discharged and then we prepared for the stem cell transplant (his dad was the donor). He was admitted on February 5th 2025 to start the process. His transplant day was on the 12th, but unfortunately the day after he got his new stem cells he got Covid. He still had to get 2 more rounds of chemo which was terrifying but his team at Hopkins jumped on it and everything went smooth. He got the antibiotic for Covid and plasma shipped up from Florida with antibodies in it.

We are currently still in Baltimore he will get to go home on day +100 after his transplant. Although he’s lost a lot of weight (115 pounds since September 2023) and weak from everything my heart soars when I say he is cancer free!”

— Zach’s mother, Tammy

JUST TRYAN IT provided Zach’s family was an emergency relief grant to assist with their mortgage and car loan payments.