A fresh fear

Tammy recalled holding him in the intensive care unit, scared of all the wires and tubes attached to him.

"He looked up at me. He had this little binkie in his mouth, under the oxygen mask." Zach stayed in the hospital for two weeks, under the care of Dr. Jeffery Lobel, Dr. Narayan Shah, and a host of dedicated nurses.

"One of us was there around the clock," Charlie said. "Mostly Tammy. And that was the hardest part for me." He used a week of vacation, but then had to go back to AMP, where co-workers were supportive but Charlie agonized over what was happening at Geisinger.

As scary as it was in the hospital, a fresh fear gripped the young couple when they brought Zach home. Tammy crushed his cancer pills in cereal and applesauce, dealing with the inevitable stress when he'd spit it out and she'd have to try to get the full dose of lifesaving medicine into him.

Even worse than that were the spinal taps he had to endure every other week. The nurses had to hold him still while he screamed in pain. Charlie helped once.

"One time. When it was done, I told the nurses I'll never do that again," Charlie said.

"We took turns being the strong person," Tammy said. "And see, I had to be in there."

"He would be a slippery seal, we always used to say. He was sweating so much," Molesevich recalled. "Now we sedate the kids. At that time we just held them."

A sensational example

"Everybody loves Zach. He was the cutest kid in the world," said Becky Sneidman, a nurse practitioner in Geisinger's pediatric hematology/oncology clinic. "He did not hold it against us. Once the treatment was done, he was up and smiling."

The spinal taps lasted about a year, and it was about the same amount of time before Zach could receive a Broviac catheter or a Mediport for his intravenous medications.

"To him it was normal living. We would take him for blood work and he would just hold his little hand out," Tammy said. "One of the nurses said it's a blessing that he's so little and won't remember this."

The only clear memory Zach has of his illness is when his last Mediport was removed when he was about 4 1/2 years old.

"I remember them putting the mask on my face because I hated that. I tried pushing it away," the 6-foot, 240-pound offensive tackle said with a little grin. "And I remember waking up in the recovery room." And that's it. That's the sum memory the young man has of the unpleasant procedures of his baby days.