Zack's Journey Continues

Good morning everyone!

More great news, Zack’s numbers are still on the rise to looking perfect. Red and white blood cell count are finally within the normal range! On October 7th, Zack will be one year post transplant. After his next appointment on October 6th, he will only have to go to MUSC once every three months! Thank you all for the continuous support and thoughts, our family greatly appreciates it.

-Kaylyn🤍

Another update for everyone, today Zack had another appointment. More great news! Zack’s liver numbers are back to normal range and they believe that they were elevated due to the cholesterol medication he was on. His numbers are improving with each visit. Thank you all for the prayers and thoughts! Will not be long till is year post transplant appointment!

-Zack’s wife 🤍

Zack’s wife again, I wanted to give a small update. Zack had an appointment today, all of Zack’s numbers looked great. So much so that he has “graduated” from seeing the transplant team at MUSC now and will be seeing another doctor there. Thank you everyone for the continuous support! ♥️

This is Zack’s wife, we wanted to give an update. Yesterday Zack went to Charleston for another appointment. All of his numbers are still looking amazing. He is 100% donor marrow now. He received his first vaccines yesterday. Dtap, polio and the pneumococcal pneumonia shots. Thank you everyone for the continuous support and thoughts!

National Donate Life Month – April
Join us in thanking all living donors for their lifesaving generosity! We want to celebrate this monto because without someone taking the time to be our guardian angel and being a living donor for Zack we may not have the amazing out come we have now. So go out donate blood, plasma whatever you can this month to help. I’m also an organ donor when my time comes…I checked the box at the DMV. Save a life you never know who’s loved one it may be but I promise you they will be forever be thankful for you.

It’s been a long day but we are finally home. They did the biopsy but they were running behind so it put his pulmonary function testing even later. Poor baby hadn’t been able to eat since last night only a sip of water to take meds. Now we wait. I think last time
The results took two weeks. We will keep you updated. Thanks for the prayers.

It’s that time again. We will be heading down to Charleston early in the morning for another bone marrow biopsy. Zack has several dr appts tomorrow but hopefully this is the last trip for 6 months for another biopsy. He still will make monthly trips down there for two years as long as he’s on the medication for transplant. He’s able to do his weekly labs here locally. So if you can say a prayer for safe travels and another great report it would be greatly appreciated. Much love Mary and Zack’s family. ❤️🙏

Hey everyone, this is Zack’s wife. I wanted to give an update. Tuesday we received the news that the PNH gene was not detected during Zack’s biopsy he recently had and that his marrow is now 97% donor marrow. I know that we have a long road ahead of us but for now Zack is cured from what we understand! He will still be high risk for the next two years post transplant but this is the news we have been waiting for! Thank you all for the continuous support and prayers. They mean the world to our family.

We’ve moved back home and I’m at work. Zack will make monthly trips back to see the dr and so his labs here. He’s doing amazing. Thank you for all the continued prayers and thoughts. We love you all

Zack and I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! As we wind down our time in Charleston we want to thank each and everyone that has followed his journey and supported us with messages,prayers, donations. We need to send out a special thanks to my husbands boss and his wife for letting us use their condo our entire stay and covered all the cost. Thank you Ernie and Grace❤️ I want to thank my job Lourie Law Firm for holding my job and checking in on my family. In two weeks he will have a biopsy and I’m hoping that is when we know how well everything went. He is really doing amazing.

I want to wish a Very Merry Christmas to each and everyone of you that follow Zacks Journey as we continue this life changing challenge. It’s with your love, prayers and help at all the fundraisers along with the wonderful dr’s at MUSC and above all God that he is spending Christmas with his beautiful family in front of a warm fire and their Christmas tree. From the bottom of this mama’s heart I love you and wish you a wonderful day.❤️🎄

Borrowed this from
Zacks wife Kaylyn Oliver’s page. She is such a strong young woman. Kay has a lot on her plate to be so young but she and Zack are both doing amazing.

Not able to do or visit much this holiday season, but we were blessed to have Zack Oliver home this weekend. So no zoo lights this year, but we are watching the Christmas Story and little man and Zack are sharing hot coco.

The best medicine in the world comes in the form of a blond haired blue eyed little boy. Coley came to visit his daddy with his mommy for the weekend. Not much longer and we will be back home with the whole family. Watch out 2023 here we come.

Today was clinic day…boy isn’t smiling because he’s in a little pain. They took out his line today. It looks alot like the second picture but his had three lines in. They just gave him a local shot and pulled the long tube out. Everyday is one step closer to coming home. No more home infusions. Please keep up the good thoughts and we hope to see y’all soon. Love and hugs.

Look at this smile. He’s on FaceTime with his wife and baby boy and whipping my butt in cards at the same time. He’s feeling much better this past week. I think he is finally over the hump with the virus. We are at clinic this am for labs and Dr appt. Our time in Charleston is almost over we have the rest of December and the beginning of January. God has been amazing and Zack has done wonderful and been so strong. Thank you all for continued prayers, calls and texts they mean so much. We love y’all.

A house divided today. Who do you root for?

Update: I got to break Zack out of the hospital last night. We will be going to the clinic on Wed before holiday weekend. We will be doing at home fluid IV’s for 4 hours a day for the next 8 days but better at home then hospital. He’s one of the strongest people I know. He hasn’t complained about pain one time and I know he has had to have been in some during our days down here. We are on like day 49 post transplant and hopefully after day 60 they can start to taper him off some of his meds. Dr’s still say he’s going amazing. Thank you for all the calls, text and prayers. Have a great week❤️

Sunday update:

The Dr just came in with the result from Ultrasound: it showed he has Cystitis which is inflammation of the bladder, usually caused by a bladder infection.

They are going to decrease his fluids and start him on IVIG for the infection. Tomorrow we will talk about when he can possibly go home.

Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIG) is a therapy treatment for patients with antibody deficiencies. It is prepared from a pool of immunoglobulins (antibodies) from the plasma of thousands of healthy donors. Immunoglobulins are made by the immune system of healthy people for the purpose of fighting infections.

Zack is still in the hospital. He had an ultrasound today waiting on results. We know he has a viral infection but they want to check his levels with all the medication he is on. I’m laid up in his bed with him tonight watching Clemson play. So in return he has to watch my Gamecocks play next. We had KFC and he was able to eat some tenders and they had a little taste. Fingers crossed we can go home on Monday.

We are back in the hospital at least overnight for observation. Just had so many tubes of blood taken I’m surprised he has any left. Hopefully more of an update tomorrow.

Today was clinic day. He met with dr got his labs and dressinf changed. The dr said he’s doing amazing. We are so excited with his progress. Looking forward to tomorrow when his beautiful wife Kaylyn and precious little boy Coley are coming to spend the night. I know that will make him feel so much better. Have a great weekend.

Todays update. Kay said his numbers are all going up. He is actually feeling better. He was up walking a lot yesterday trying to get strength up. He ate twice and said he could some what taste the lasagna I made him. He's super excited Coley coming to spend the night Saturday

Latest updates: the clinic visits have now gone from every other day to every third day. Each time we go he has to have a two hour magnesium infusion. He said it makes his blood feel like it’s boiling so we head to get a jumbo Icee from McDonalds. Everything still taste like dirt to him but he is trying to eat a little more each day. Hoping Coley will be able to come for the weekend soon.

A big thank you to Nikki Mcfadden, Zack’s sister for sending us these cute pictures of Coley in the costume his daddy got him before we left for Charleston.

Clinic update: Amazing news yesterday! We met with twoo of his transplant team and they told Zack he was doing so awesome and he’s the fastest patient with his type of illness to have his numbers going up so fast three weeks after transplant. He needed a transfusion of magnesium but his other numbers are on the rise. We still can’t can’t get him to eat much but we are slowly working on that. We go back to the clinic on Thursday and if numbers are good he may get the weekend off from clinic. So say extra prayer for good numbers tomorrow so he can can have 3 days off.

Monday update: Zack had an appt at clinic on Sunday. Kay said numbers looked good. Zack still isn’t eating and has lost some weight, he said everything either has no taste or taste like dirt. Tonight he was able to drink a milkshake and for lunch he ate half a grilled cheese. This is the antibiotic that he gives himself for one more day…told him it looks like a gr***de. Clinic at 10:00 in the morning we think he will be getting some blood.

God is amazing. Today Zack’s ANC count went up over night from 320 to over 1150. He was released to the condo today. We will have a to go back to clinic every other day starting Sunday morning. We picked up his meds and gave us a book to log all of them in. We still won’t know until after day 30 if the transplant took but the dr’s said he’s doing awesome.

Today’s update:
Zack still doesn’t feel like eating but they are going to try him a new medicine to help increase his appetite. His numbers are coming up. Platelets are coming up in own. The Absolute Neutrophil Count is at 50. She said looks like on upswing and we are on single digit days til we can go to condo. Prayers are working.

It’s been a rough few days. It’s been a week since Zack has been able to eat anything other then a cup of applesauce and maybe two yoohoo’s. He’s been on fluids pretty much around the clock. The nurse spoke with dietician and they are going to speak with dr about giving him something to help with appetite. Also, they have discussed doing a test on his throat to see if he’s got something blocking him from eating. Zack is extremely nauseous and they have been giving him Zofran in his IV. He had done so well with chemo before transplant. It was the post transplant chemo that is kicking his butt. Continued prayers. Once he can get his ANC numbers to 500 he can be released to condo…today was the first day where he had a reading with numbers. We are at 10, they said it could take two hours, two days or weeks to get them up and that each patient is different.

Weekend update:

It has not been a good weekend at all. I left on Friday morning so I could trade off with Kaylyn and he was not feeling good then. I asked my girl how he was doing and this was the first text I got:

From Kay

In pain. Chemo side effects are kicking in badly. He’s on pain medication and strong nausea meds

It has now been 5 days since he has eaten, today I managed to get him to drink 1/2 a milkshake. The ds say if he doesn’t start eating he won’t be going home as scheduled. He’s living off of IV fluids. My sweet baby is losing his hair and is so pale.

On a good note his sister stopped by to see him for a few minutes along with nephew Matthew.

Hoping to be getting over the hump as he just told his night nurse he had no nausea. We haven’t had a fever in a few days. Now to get him eating

Thank you all for continued calls, text messages and prayers. I love you all.

Today or I guess looking at the time…yesterday was a rough day. Woke spiking a fever of 102.8, low platelets snd hemoglobin. When the dr came in we found out he had a bacteria in his blood so now he’s on a round of antibiotics every 8 hours that take 3 hours to run through his iv. Zack hasn’t eaten in two days due to nausea he has managed a milkshake and soft serve ice cream. We were told that all of this was to be expected aftet transplant. It’s still very hard to watch my baby boy going through this. I don’t care what age he is he will always be my baby. Continued prayers please.

Today hasn’t been a good day. He started out with a small fever and now we are up to 102.3. He’s on liquid antibiotics, liquid Zofran for nausea. And they added several new meds along with a shot in the belly to help build up his cells. Just took 650 mg of Tylenol to try to bring the fever down. Poor baby hasn’t been able to eat anything today except a milkshake earlier this morning because of the sores in mouth. They took several tubes of blood, I’m guessing to test for infection. Please continue to keep Zack in your thoughts and prayers tonight.

Good morning everyone. Last day of chemo and then he starts on immune suppressant medications tomorrow. Great news still no fever. Talked to his dr when I got back yesterday and she said he’s doing great. He’s getting a bag of blood this morning and is counting down the days until he can go to the condo. Twenty something more and he should be able to sleep through the night without someone coming in.

Thank you mama Dorothy Moore for getting the boy his Clemson blanket I’m sure it will make him feel better. Today was a chemo day, I got back after trading of the weekend with Kaylyn and he’s said he felt a little out of it but was able to eat and we watched a football game. Won’t be long before it’s time for the night nurses to come do their rounds and give him his nightly meds. Sweet dreams y’all

Hello again! Everything went well today between Zack and transplant. He spent most of the day resting. He does have a smalll fever that they are watching and he is having a little nausea. Zack was able to eat dinner and is sleeping soundly well as soundly as you can having someone come into your room every little bit. Thank you all for the prayers, phone calls and text checking in on us. We love you all.

He’s done and now jusy watching to see how he does. They say he seems to be accepting it well. Now we wait for the next 10-15 days for them to attach and begin making healthy cells. Then possibly we can go to condo within next 30 days. Look at Coley supporting his daddy.

Transplant day is here. Depending on if his cells have arrived they will begin at around 11:30. If not, it will be this afternoon. It should only take 1-1 1/2 hours. Please keep Zack in your thoughts and prayers today. I’ll post ab update as soon as we have one. Sending big love to you all❤️

Dr just left. She said everything looks good and is a go for Thursday. So bone marrow transplant a go! He will have to be watched closely. It should take about 10-12 days for it to start finding its new home she said. Then on days 13-20 he should start making healthy platelets and by day 25 we maybe able to go to condo. Hoping to be home by first of year.