WEBVTT - Case #03: Zach 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.280 I literally cannot stand up. At that point, I even 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.680 had to ask my parents, like to move my limbs 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:13.080 for me, Like, oh, can you move my arm? I'm 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:16.320 not comfortable, can you move my leg? I knew something 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.079 was really not right, so I started to panic. He 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:24.800 was running extremely high fevers, which scared me to death 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.160 because you know, I just kept thinking like, oh my god, 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:29.960 even if he survives, his brain is going to be fried. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.600 So your lungs don't work anymore, your blood pressure drops, 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.360 your kidneys wind up failing. The risk of dying goes 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.680 up by about one for every five minutes that passes. 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.880 How terrifying would it be to fight an unknown enemy, 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:56.240 one you didn't recognize and didn't see coming. What if 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.959 that enemy was coming from within a disease even doctors 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:06.319 couldn't identify. Nearly half of all Americans suffer from some 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:12.360 chronic illness, and many struggle for an accurate diagnosis. These 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:18.720 are their stories. I'm Lauren Bright, the checko, and this 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:35.639 is symptomatic. Zach Dobek was a self described relatively normal 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.920 eleven year old kid. His favorite food was pizza, He 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.800 loved sports, he loved being outside, but above everything, he 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.240 loved Legos. Yeah, I was a big Lego kid. I 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.760 would say I was never a huge video game guy, 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.320 nothing like that. But we had a whole Lego set 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.920 in our basement. He loved to fish and be in 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.160 the water and just do all the things that kids 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.880 love to do. That was Zack's mother, Martie Doeback, who 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.720 knew she had a rather exceptional kid on her hands 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.000 from a young age. I literally can't help but like 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.720 break into a huge smile because he is just a 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.480 really unique kid who just sort of connects with everybody 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.440 around him. And I think about how lucky we are 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.360 because he is such a special human being. So he 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.880 was special before he got sick, and maybe he's even 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:30.000 extra special now, a special kid that was forever shaped 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.840 by a life threatening battle with a mystery medical condition. 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.760 Marnie is a family physician who would be faced with 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:42.520 an emergency even she didn't see coming. Was there anything 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.839 that could have prepared you for the roller coaster you're 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.400 about to go on? No? Simply no, there was nothing. 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.760 You know, I think as a mom, probably all moms 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.360 worry about things that might happen to their children. You know, 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.400 is my child going to have cancer? As my child 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.359 is going to become a diabetic, as my child is 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.520 going to get into a car accident, And these were 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.840 the kinds of things that, like over the years, had 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.679 you know, maybe run through my mind, but what ended 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.600 up happening was so far from anything I could have 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:21.160 even imagined. The first signs of something being wrong with 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:23.840 Zach started to show up while she was cheering on 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.960 her son during a little league baseball doubleheader. I remember 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.000 these these moments in exquisite detail. So I know that 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.600 it was June four of two thousand fourteen, and that 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.560 was a Wednesday, and my husband and I were at 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.680 the game, and he had played, you know, particularly well, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.200 I think at those games, and so when the games ended, 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.120 you know, I went over to him to congratulate him 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.520 or whatever when they're eleven years old. I put my 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.480 arm around him and I said good job, and he 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.560 started to cry. I told my mom and my dad 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.000 was coaching me at the time. I told them that 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:03.800 my knee was kind of hurting and I had like 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.200 a really bad headache. And now, being the athletic kid 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.080 that I was, I was busy all day and I 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.600 had a double header baseball game, so two in a 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.320 row so when I told them of that pain, they 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.800 were kind of like, Okay, you just had a lot 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:23.360 of physical activity. And being the fine parent that I am, 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.000 my first thought was like, he's hungry, he didn't need 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:31.000 he played too long games, it's hot. So I really 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.359 didn't think too much of it either, especially knowing my 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.520 mom as a doctor, I kind of knew she would 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.600 take care of everything. I knew I could always trust her, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.120 and the fact that she's like, all right, let's get 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.440 get some dinner, let's drink some water, and see how 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.840 you are tomorrow. Um, I really wasn't thinking too much 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.080 of it at the time. The Dopebac family went home 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.839 for dinner, but Zach didn't eat at all, which was strange. 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.200 Zach loved food and it was odd for Martie to 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.440 see him pass up a meal. His curious nee pain 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.039 lingered into the next day, so he woke up in 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.760 the morning and he said that his knee was still 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.760 hurting him. And you know, I guess those were the 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.159 first glimmers where I was sort of like, mm hmm, 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.360 that's a little bit weird. So I decided to keep 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:23.040 him home from school, and I gave him some advil 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:24.960 or something like that that you would give any kid 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.719 for pain, and the advil kicked in after a little bit. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:30.800 You know, he's a great kid, and he came up 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:32.560 to me and he said, do you know what, Mom, 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:34.560 I feel better. I think I'm okay to go to school. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.000 So I said okay. Zack didn't last long after she 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.360 dropped him off. The pain was quickly catching up to him, 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.599 causing him to start lumping. The school nurse was actually 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.320 the one to realize something wasn't quite right. She called 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.160 me and she said that Zack had come to her 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.760 complaining of knee pain, that he didn't have a fever, 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:59.200 but he was limping, and then what she said, um, 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.159 and I really remember, like she said these exact words. 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:06.719 He just doesn't look right. And I remember saying to her, like, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:11.120 I know, you know, something seems really odd. And I said, okay, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.640 I'll come pick him up. And I brought him home 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:16.480 and I, you know, I got him set on the 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:18.920 couch and I you know, I raised his leg up 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.760 on something and I gave him some ice, and I 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.840 gave him some more advil. And when I went back 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.560 to check on him after some time, you know, I 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.400 felt his head and he felt warm, and I took 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.320 his temperature and he was running a fever. And I 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:39.000 remember also thinking, that's weird lingering me pain and now 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.280 a fever. Marty thought it might just have been that 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.600 getting some sort of virus, which would explain the pain 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.240 and fever. But things started to get worse quickly. The 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.520 next day, she was barely at work an hour before 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.159 getting a phone call from their all pair, and she 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.160 called me at work to tell me that she was 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.680 downstairs in our kitchen and she could hear him crying 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.080 up in his room. And again, you know, there are 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.600 all these moments. That was another moment where I was like, okay, 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.040 like bring him to my office. So I'm a family doctor, 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.240 and I had asked one of my associates if she 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.880 would take a look at him for me. So she 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.440 came into the room and by that point he was 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:25.160 really uncomfortable, like he couldn't sit still because of the pain. 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:27.880 But when you looked at his knee where he was 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.560 complaining of pain, it wasn't read, it wasn't swollen. She 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:34.600 was able to move it, and so she sort of 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.000 examined him and looked at me and like almost like 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.600 shrugged at me like, I don't know, it's weird. She 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.600 ordered him some pain medicine. She thought maybe it was 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.160 a weird case of lime disease. So he got some 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:51.400 blood work and she prescribed an appropriate antibiotic for lime 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.400 disease that maybe we could just get started on. In 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:58.120 the meantime, the pain, the fevers, both of these are 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.320 adding up to look a lot like I'm disease. That 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.280 was until the blood work came back with some alarming results, 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.679 results that made Martie start to get really nervous. Within 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:10.880 a couple of hours, we got a call from the 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:15.840 lab with a critical result. And one of the tests 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.320 that had been run is called a c reactive protein 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.680 or a c RP, So a c RP is it's 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.120 a very non specific test, but it's a test that 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.280 sort of measures like a level of inflammation in the body, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.320 so it doesn't tell you what's causing the inflammation. But 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:35.839 his came back extraordinarily high, to a point where I 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.040 knew something Everyone knew, not just me, but I knew 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.400 something was really not right. So I started to panic. 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.040 That was the moment I was gonna say, take me 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.720 to that moment, because you're wearing your mother hat and 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.520 you're wearing your doctor hat. And usually when as a 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.280 parent you are told of a result like this, you 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.080 have to educate yourself. But you instantly that must have 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.720 been like ice cold feared on your back. Yeah, I 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.160 mean it was. I knew something was very wrong, but 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.480 you kind of start spiraling into like that half doctor, 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.800 half mom, like you don't want to overreact, you don't 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.200 want to underreact, you know. I always say like I 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.359 didn't want to be that patient that was like difficult 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.800 or an over worrior, and you know, trying to balance 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.640 all of it was not easy, but but I was. 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:33.240 I was nervous at that point. It's becoming apparent there's 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.680 a lot more going on here than just lyme disease. 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.200 But what Martie is starting to fear the worst because 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.320 she knows how telling those test results, maybe being a 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.880 doctor herself. Looking to where it all started with his knee, 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:48.920 Martie takes him to an orthopedis to see if they 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.160 can source any answers. And Zach was laying there on 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.240 the table and he looked ill, like he did not 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.480 look well. But he had also already taken like Thailand 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.439 all with codine at that point, so it was a 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:03.320 little bit hard to tell what was what if he 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.440 was drowsy from that, but he did not look well. 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:08.520 So the doctor pulled the fluid out of the joint 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.480 and he said, to me, the fluid doesn't look normal, 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.720 but it doesn't look like a bacterial infection either. He 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.800 thought it was what we call like a viral synovitis, 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.280 like what I had kind of originally thought that he 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.520 had some kind of virus that was causing the lining 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.199 of his joint to be inflamed, and the abnormal fluid 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.120 was because of all the inflammation in there. The fluid 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:32.880 was going to all go out to the lab and 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.120 you know, so that was it. So I sort of 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.680 like stood there. I remember feeling like almost dumbfound like okay, 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:48.839 but my mother, doctor censors were going off tremendously. I 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.840 knew that that wasn't it. But what do you do? 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.240 What stopped you in that moment? That must have been 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.440 so difficult for you to navigate because I felt like 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.439 I had done everything, you know, I I took him 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.560 to a primary care doctor. He was examined, he had 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.319 blood work, he had an X ray, he saw an orthopedies, 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.000 He took the fluid out of the knee, like I 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.240 I didn't know what else to do. Like I felt 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:13.920 like even if I took him to the hospital, they 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.839 were just going to send him home because everything had 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.320 been done. But I just I knew something was not right. 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.000 She went to her younger son's baseball game the next day, 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.640 but Marnie was buzzing with nervous energy. Having left Zack 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.320 with his older brother, the family came home to find 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.760 Zack's leg had ballooned while they were away. And I 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.319 remember I just had to go pee and I literally 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.000 couldnot get up to walk to the bathroom. So my 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.599 older brother I got in his back. He gave me 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.360 a piggyback ride to the bathroom. I could like barely 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.960 even stand up at that point. The fact that I 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.840 couldn't even walk to the bathroom is like mind boggling. 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.160 And by the time we got home, we noticed that 0:11:55.240 --> 0:12:00.559 like his thigh looked swollen and um. As that date progressed, 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.520 he just, I mean it got it started to get ridiculous. 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:10.320 He started to have extreme pain everywhere, like all over 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.000 his body. I even had to ask my parents, like 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.160 to move my limbs for me. I would ask them like, oh, 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.160 can you move my arm. I'm not comfortable. Can you 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.920 move my leg? My husband had to pick him up, 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.920 carry him up the stairs to put him in bed. 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.000 And my husband tried to put him in his bed, 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:31.880 and Zach said to him, can I go in your bed? 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.480 It's more comfortable, So my husband put him in our bed, 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:40.520 which you know, in retrospect, thank god, three days have 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.840 passed since the onset of symptoms fever, body aches, swelling, 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.280 and so much pain that Zack couldn't move on his own. 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:53.280 The antibiotics and medicine so far hadn't helped things change course. 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.360 All the specialists and even Marnie were stumped as to 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.360 what was really happening to him. Things kept spiraling in 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.240 the wrong direction, and Marnie slept in the bed with 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.880 Zach to keep a close eye on him. You can 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:08.880 ask my mom. We didn't sleep that much to that night, 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.760 especially her. She was worried sick. It was just hours 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.280 of him like tossing and turning. He kept asking for 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.120 water over and over, and you know, he would doze 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.080 for a few minutes and and finally like somewhere in 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:23.840 the middle of the night, maybe it was three o'clock 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.400 in the morning. He asked for the water and I 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.600 said sure, sure, I'll get it for you. And then 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.720 he looked me straight in the face and he said, 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.160 is someone going to fly it to our house? And 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:36.599 I looked at him and I said what. And I 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:42.400 kind of remember being like in a dream stay almost tired, 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:44.760 So I said it and I told her and I 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.040 was like no, no, no, I'm just tired. I'm just 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.800 dreaming like it's okay. Uh. And then I asked again, 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.480 like five seconds later, are they going to fly it 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.760 over to me? And he again said is someone going 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:58.880 to fly it to our house? So he was like 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.959 starting to like hallucinate. I don't know, but I started 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.640 to cry and she was like, that's it. We're going 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.040 to the hospital. And I actually sat there and I 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:10.319 was like no, I'm so tired, Like can we please 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:12.200 go in the morning. Can we please go in the morning? 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.120 And she was like Nope, absolutely not, We're going right now. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:17.920 And I think about that and like if we had 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:21.040 said yes, Like the honest to god truth is that 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.000 I think he would have died in that bed that night. 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.840 We'll be right back with Symptomatic, a medical Mystery podcast. 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:43.200 Now back to Symptomatic a medical mystery podcast, Zach Dobec 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.560 was fighting for his life against a mysterious illness that 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.240 now had him heading to the e R. He still 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.480 had an extremely high fever, was in so much pain 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.080 that he couldn't move on his own, and now he 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.840 was starting to become delusional. He wasn't himself, and that 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:03.120 terrified his mother, Marny, And we got him into the 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.400 emergency room and into like the triage nurse, and the 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.440 triage nurse took one look at him and she said, 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.720 he doesn't look good. And I thought, no kidding, lady. 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:16.520 I mean we were. We were deliriously tired, so I 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.160 think I was dozing on and off. But they did 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.320 a chest X ray and blood work and he was 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.120 on oxygen, and you know, we were there for a 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.040 few hours, and you know, sometime early in the morning 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.960 the results started to come in and he was in 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:37.360 multi system failure, you know, liver failure, kidney failure, He 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.640 had fluid in his lungs. I mean, he was a wreck. 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.320 Just four days after first showing symptoms, Zach is now 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:49.960 experiencing multi system failure, with him being transferred to the 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.800 i c U. Every passing hours critical defining the cause 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.760 of his symptoms and most importantly, the right treatment. It 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.320 is literally to the point of life or death, as 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.080 the doctor's race defined an answer, but that doesn't stop 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.880 Martie from trying to find a way to comfort her son, 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:12.160 as his mother, in these moments, he looked. I mean, 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.000 in medicine, like when you see a really sick person, 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:16.760 a lot of times you say that they looked toxic. 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.640 He looked toxic. I actually took pictures of him in 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.320 the ambulance. I can't remember why. I think I was 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.200 like talking, I don't even know. I think we were 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.960 trying to like make him laugh or cheer him up, 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:29.760 you know, I don't remember why, but I took some 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.360 pictures of him. And when you look at the pictures, 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.680 I mean, he looks gray. He looks horrible and gray 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.600 and very ill. He was kind of just laying there still. Yeah, 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:42.800 I haven't seen it in a while, but I mean, 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.680 with the fever as high as it was, um, I 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.680 was pretty much just like a blank slate. My body 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:54.680 was literally just like a sack of potatoes, just almost lifeless, 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:56.880 and even in my eyes you could kind of see 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.240 that I wasn't there that's so frightening because it's is 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.840 like your body had lost all feeling except for pain. Yeah, 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:05.679 and it's not the pain you would think of, like 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.840 ow I stubbed my toe. It was like pain, like 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:14.040 shut down, like something really bad was going to happen. 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:16.960 Placed in the care of the pediatric I see you, 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.040 Zach and Marney were repeatedly given the same conclusions as before, 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.040 some sort of tickborn illness in the family of lyme disease. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.119 Zach was already on oxygen and using an ivy for hydration. 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.879 He was then put on full spectrum antibiotics and hopes 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.880 that any of them would help combat the illness that 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.639 was causing his body to start to shut down. But 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.800 it wasn't enough. The doctors needed to take more drastic 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.280 measures to try to save his life. And so the 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.359 I c U doctor came in and he said, let's 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:54.080 go have a meeting in my office. And he basically said, like, 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.720 we think he needs to go on a ventilator or 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.040 a respirator. And I mean, what are we going to argue? 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:00.879 You know, of course, of course if that's what he needs, 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.359 and so you know, we we obviously said okay, and 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.359 we um they asked us to step out, and we 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.200 were out of out of the I c U. I 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.000 don't know if it was twenty minutes or what. We 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.920 were waiting, and you know, they call you back in. 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.480 Trying to control my tears, but they call you back in, 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:22.359 and your kid, who was playing baseball, you know what, 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:26.359 three or five days earlier, was laying there on a 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.840 ventilator with like tubes and like and you know they're 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.880 un they put them out, so he's, you know, unconscious, 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.359 un a ventilator and I just remember thinking, like, what 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.520 is happening here? Can I ask a question? So? Was 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.880 it technically? Did they put him in a medically induced comma? Yeah, 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.919 that's exactly what they did. Zach was now in a 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.760 medically induced comma to protect his brain from swelling and 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.440 to keep him alive. While the doctors scrambled to figure 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.640 out the root of his symptoms, nothing seemed to be working, 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.680 and his fever just kept persisting through all the attempts 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:04.879 to bring it down to the point where they were 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.840 putting him on like cooling blankets. You know. I just 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.080 kept thinking, like, oh my god, even if he survives, 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.679 his brain is going to be fried. His lung collapsed 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.840 at one point, so he needed a chess tube to 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:21.160 re expand his lung. There was just complication after complication. 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:23.600 When I was in the coma. Again this is second hand, 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.080 but they said I could hear, and my dad would um. 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:28.560 He would tell me every day when I was in 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.080 the coma. He would say, wake up, Zack. We got 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.280 fish to catch. And that was his way of saying, like, 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.000 you gotta get up. You're not done yet. We got 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:43.760 stuff to do. We got fish to catch. And Zack's 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.160 dad was right. The doctors had taken a blood sample 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.000 that held the key to finding out what was really 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.720 going on here, a seemingly simple course of action that 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.679 would give the Dopbec family the answers They were desperate for. 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.280 The blood culture that they had taken that night. Eight 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.520 in the emergency room was growing MERCA. I don't know 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.680 if everyone knows MERCA, but it stands from methicillin resistance 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.960 staff aureous. It's a staff bacteria that is um resistant 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.359 to the majority of antibiotics that we have, and it 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:19.000 tends to be very aggressive and cause very serious infections sometimes. 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:26.440 And so they knew he was in septic shock from merca. 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.199 They had finally gotten to the bottom of what was 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.240 slowly draining the life from Zach mersa that had developed 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.600 into sepsis. Here's Dr Jem O'Brien, the vice president of 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.399 Operations for Population Health and Ohio Health and a board 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:47.440 member of the Sepsis Alliance. For those not familiar with sepsis, 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:51.520 could you give me a layman's definition. Yeah, So, your 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.600 body has an army that's designed to fight infections. And 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.040 if you think about if you get a local infection 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.760 of boil or ingrown, tony al or something, it gets 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.720 read head, it gets inflamed, it hurts, it might even 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.600 have some pasts, and then it gets better. What sepsis 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:09.160 is is when those body defense systems actually go haywire, 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.359 and so instead of having a focused response to the infection, 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.480 you wind up with widespread response to infection throughout the body, 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.160 and so your body functionally suffers friendly fire from your 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:24.080 immune system trying to battle the infection. If you experience 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:28.040 septic shock, the risk of dying goes up by about 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.920 one percent for every five minutes that passes without appropriate antibiotics. 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:35.640 Zach had gone into septic shock because of how rapidly 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.760 the mercer had spread throughout his body. They knew what 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.880 disease they were up against, but every minute was now 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.639 critical to finding a treatment that could save his life. 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.480 An orthopedis came to see me and my husband to 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:52.760 tell me that he had a massive infection. It's called osteomyelitis. 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:55.879 It's a bone infection in his femur bone or his 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:01.400 thigh bone, and he needed urgent surgery. So the orthopedist 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:05.640 shout out Dr Minkowitz, who saved his life, took him 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.400 from the m r I directly to the emergency room. 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.720 So I ended up having six surgeries on my femur 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.320 and they basically just scooped out the bone that was infected. 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:19.680 Sounds pretty gross. It is pretty gross. I have a 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:22.359 really cool scar now, which I love my scar, so 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:26.080 that's pretty cool. I had basically no femur, so they 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.679 had to just let that bone regrow. After the surgeries 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.119 on his femur, Zach was seeing small improvements, but the 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:36.080 doctors were still struggling to break his fever, and we're 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:40.240 concerned about it causing long term brain damage. Here's Dr 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:43.040 O'Brien again. One of the things we're just beginning to 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:46.560 understand is there's also something called post sepsis syndrome that 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.560 is present maybe as many as fifty of all survivors 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.040 of sepsis, and could present in a wide range of ways. 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:54.720 One of the ways that's been most well studied is 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:58.120 actually the presence of something called cognitive dysfunction. Think about 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.439 people having problems with memory or doing calculations, kind of 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:04.199 the higher order functions of our brain. People can have 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.440 significant limitations as a result of that. But all that 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:10.439