Story
Name
ZeKai Brock
Injury/Illness
Long term NICU journey
Heartache turned hope – that’s the journey my husband and I have embarked on with our brave little fighter, ZeKai, who arrived into this world way too early and under challenging circumstances due to preeclampsia and rapid liver damage. Born at 32 weeks with a severe form of intrauterine growth restriction and a heart condition, ZeKai’s fighting spirit shines brightly in the NICU. Funds raised will support our family’s living expenses, allowing us to stay by ZeKai’s side without the added stress of financial burdens with my husbands lack of further paternity leave, and worries of having to return to work leaving our family in another City.
Every donation, no matter the size, directly impacts our family by providing us with a bit of breathing room. It means one less day of worry about finances and one more day spent focusing on what truly matters – ZeKai’s health and well-being.
Our little miracle that was given to us, has made for a long stressful journey that continues. At our 20 week ultrasound we found out our son has a ventricular septal defect. We had met with a cardiologist at Rochester Mayo after finding this out who reassured us he would be able to be born with no issues, however following this appointment we had met with our maternal fetal medicine doctors who notified us he was growing in the smaller side. We had a follow up ultrasound 3 weeks later where he had dropped from the 11th percentile to the 7th percentile. This had given him the diagnosis of IUGR, they had wanted to do weekly BPP & Doppler ultrasounds as well as weekly NST testing. Following our next ultrasound he had been diagnosed with severe IUGR because he had dropped from the 7th percentile to the 2nd. There was no change in direction at that point, just to follow up weekly with our BPP & Doppler Ultrasounds and NST’s. Two of the weeks for NST’s we had been held, and then sent to Rochester for further monitoring. Our last hold in Rochester they had told us they would want to deliver him at 37 weeks and no later had his BPP’s stayed above passing and his dopplers had shown no signs of resistance. I had a follow up appointment that following Tuesday after being released on Saturday from Rochester. By Monday night (4/15/2024) I had questioned going into the hospital for pain I was having in my chest, I had waited through the night due to thinking it was too similar to gas pain and I was overreacting and I had an appointment scheduled the next day, by Tuesday morning I was unable to stay awake for long periods of time, the pain had gotten worse and it was getting hard to breathe, so my husband had taken off work to bring me to the emergency room. They had drawn my labs and seen that my liver enzymes had started to rise at a rapid rate. They decided to transfer me to Rochester again where they would do further testing and come up with a better plan. We had drawn more labs to check levels, in hopes we would be able to maintain the pregnancy until 34 weeks while being monitored in the hospital, my labs had come back around 6pm and our doctors decided on an emergency induction due to risk of full liver failure had we tried to maintain the pregnancy.
our son had made his entrance into the world on 4/17/2024 at 4:34 AM at 32 weeks gestation.
this has put a huge financial burden on our family as my husband has been out of work 3 weeks already, and we are unsure when we will be released or when he will be able to return to work.
