The Watson Family

This is Zach, my stepson, he’s 14. About a month ago Zach started saying his urine looked weird. His dad took him to the doctor who did blood work and stated some of the numbers affecting the kidneys were off, so she wanted an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that his kidneys and spleen were enlarged but we weren’t sure if that was typical for him or not, so the doctor scheduled an appointment at Brenner’s Children’s Hospital in November, but to come back, if Zach started feeling worse. Last weekend he started having back and joint pain and lost his appetite. He was at his dad's at the time and took him to an urgent care, they did the best they could but didn't want to do anything else since he already had an appt in November to see the kidney specialist. Heather, his mom, took Zach to his doctor early Monday and they drew labs again. Tuesday morning the doctor called and said to get him to Brenner’s emergency room as soon as possible. Once there, they performed lots of blood work and lots of tests and found that his kidneys were only functioning at 15% when 10 days earlier they were at 90%. The doctor then told us that if we hadn’t been on top of this it could have been fatal. Since admission, Zach has had surgery to do a biopsy on his kidney to determine the problem. It turns out Zach has a rare autoimmune disease that only affects 1 in 1,000,000 people. He has had surgery to place a catheter port in his abdomen and neck for dialysis and is currently getting dialysis and plasma pharesis every day. He has been such a trooper and has a long road ahead of him. Thank you for taking time to read his story and if you are able, please help support his medical bills and our family. The doctors haven’t even begun to discuss a discharge date and me and my wife Heather has gone out of work on FMLA to be with him. Thank you all for your support and prayers.