This Week With Our Dear Zachary and Loving Family

How happy we are that Anna and Michael and the children are sustained by their strong faith and the prayers of family and friends throughout this trying time of Zachary's hospitalization. How hard it is to be far away during these trying events yet how wonderful it is to be near in spirit. On this Sabbath day the whole family is offering a day of Fasting and Prayer for Zachary.

After a week of not moving so he could heal from the Tracheal Bacteria, it was such a joy when the medication was backed off and he was allowed to wake up for a day and then go home. After not moving for a week he was very weak and needed to be watched carefully.

When our Apostle Elder Scott told us that the bond of love among the Apostles was greater than the love in most families, I happily thought that the love in our family is comparable to that of the Apostles.

Surrounded by loving family the whole time. Finally after many days he is awake.

Anna's email explains the beginning history of this time for our missionary journal/blog.

Hello Family and friends,

It seems like it has taken a long time for me to get a grip on everything that has happened. I wanted to give you all an update and let you know all the details because I am not sure how much you all know. It has been wonderful to get so much support and feel the love through phone calls and kind acts. Thanks for this. Please feel free to forward this on to those who want to know.

Fist off, Zach has been sick with the croup since last Sunday. On Tuesday we took him to urgent care when he started wheezing real bad. We went home with a nebulizer and he seemed to do good all night. The next day he started wheezing worse and we took him back to our pediatrician who gave him some breathing treatments and admitted us to the hospital for overnight observations.

We were released the next day and Zach seemed well on his way to recovery.that night (Thursday) his breathing got worse again and I decided to take Zachary back to the hospital. Michael stayed with the other kids and I left thinking that he would get some breathing treatments and we would be back in the morning.

En route to the hospital, it got real quiet in the backseat, I thought for a split second that he had fallen asleep but quickly realized that I should still hear him breathing. I realized he had stopped breathing about a block away and sped to the emergency driveway. I pulled him out of the car and he had already started to turn blue around is mouth and nose. A nurse saw me as I drove up and followed me as I ran in. I think she was shouting instructions to people because there was a convergence of medical staff upon me within what seemed like seconds. I remember yelling "He's not breathing" as a nurse scooped him out of my arms. I sat there in shock and crying as the three people "assigned to the mom" helped talk me down and make sure I was okay. I had one of them call Michael and I told him what happened. He called our Bishop who came over with his wife and they stayed with our kids all night.

They worked quick on Zach and got a breathing tube down him, but then he vomited and he aspirated some of that. His color quickly returned and he began to stabilize enough to take him upstairs to the PICU. Apparently they had to give him a paralytic and heavy sedatives so that he would not move while they worked on him. It was such a hard thing to watch him be so still and hooked up to so many tubes. Michael stayed strong and tried to focus on the technical aspects of what they were doing. With his EMT and CPR training, he found a lot of it interesting and it distracted him enough.

Aunt Brenda, Curt and Camille showed up right away and it made such a difference to have some others to lean on and share this with.

Things quieted down around 9:30 or 10pm and the doctor came in to talk to us. What we have found out since then is that he may have developed some more severe infection in his upper airway along with something called a lryngospasm that caused his airway to close up. Also, because of the aspiration he has developed pneumonia in the last day. He has so much swelling in his trachea that he must stay on the ventilator until at least tomorrow morning. They tested his airway this morning and he was not even close to being ready to breath on his own. They will remove the breathing tube in the OR with an ENT doc to check out that there was no damage done during the intabation or any defects in his throat.

So, it looks like in the best case scenario we won't be going home until at least Wednesday if not Thursday, but they said it is likely he will stay until next Sunday. Sharon (our resident family RN) was able to fly down here from Utah last night to help us out with Miriam Emily and Markus. They seem to be dealing well, but it has been hard to know what they need while we have been so busy with Zachary. It is also nice that Sharon can help me know the right questions for the nurses and doctors. While he is on life support right now, she helps to assure me that these are all necessary steps to get him better. She'll be here until Tuesday.

We are SOOO grateful for our good doctors and the medical staff here at Cardon's. I think it has been as good of experience as it could be considering we almost lost our son. We are also VERY grateful for all your support and prayers. We have felt the overwhelming peace and warmth from the Spirit and know it is because of all the prayers.

What we would really appreciate right now is your continued prayers for all of us. We love to get phone calls and visitors because right now we are just waiting until he can wake up. Next week, if you would like to visit, just give us a call. We are taking things day by day right now. I attached some pics. I know they might be hard to look at, but I try to keep things real. :) Rest assured that he is doing well and what is expected in his case. We love you all.
Anna and Michael