By Kyle Roberts
If you happen to encounter Zach McMillan, ask him about fishing.
A junior at Ruston High School, this polite and funny young man will absolutely light up when he recounts his tales of his time on the water. He absolutely beams when he talks about starting to fish with his sister, Julianna, or how it’s a family affair with his dad.
“My dad has been fishing since before I was born,” Zach said. “He’s always been very into it, like going off and fishing all the opens. I never really got into it until seventh grade. I found out I could fish the high school with my sister since she was in high school. And we just went from there.”
Most recently, Zach earned first place at the 2023 Northeast Louisiana High School Anglers Tournament at Caney Lake, weighing in a whopping 20.65 pounds.
Given his knack for the rod and reel, it’s no surprise to know he’s spent time competing at national events in places like Alabama, South Carolina and Wisconsin.
No question. Zach counts himself lucky to have the ability to do a hobby incredibly well that he so very much enjoys.
But in June of 2022, a normally lively young man with boundless energy started to showcase odd symptoms that could have been chalked up to normal teenager behavior.
“We were actually at fishing nationals in June; it was his birthday,” Zach’s mother Shannon recounted. “It was June 28th, 2022, and his gums were bleeding off and on when he woke up in the morning. And then there was an incident in the boat where he had like a cold sore or something on his lip; it started bleeding, and it wouldn’t stop.
“There were just some kind of weird things, but like, he’s a teenage boy, and we would say, like, you don’t brush your teeth enough and you are not eating right.”
It would be a couple of weeks later at Piney Woods Church Camp in Texas that Zach discovered climbing out of a swimming pool proved nearly impossible.
“When I got out of the pool, I couldn’t walk,” Zach said. “When I stood up my legs would give out under me. After that, I didn’t do anything else; I just sat around.”
Shannon first thought Zach was showing signs of dehydration at the camp, or possibly COVID-19 given his symptoms and an outbreak at the camp.
“Almost 50 percent of the people who went to the camp with us had COVID,” Shannon said. “We did an at-home test on him, and it was negative. But I was still positive it was COVID. For three days, he just did not get off the couch, and I said we needed to take him in to run some tests.”
A trip to SouthStar Urgent Care in Ruston began what would be the journey for his next year. Certified Family Nurse Practitioner Jim Owens identified immediately that something besides COVID was impacting Zach. While running tests, he immediately suggested the family head to the emergency room.
“I’m so thankful for Jim Owens,” Shannon said. “He’s a fantastic human being. He’s part of our story now. As soon as he looked at Zach, he knew it wasn’t COVID. He didn’t want to freak me out too much, so we went and had blood drawn. We were waiting to see if we could get to an emergency room. And, funny thing is, it’s really hard. You don’t go to the E.R. with these problems. St. Francis (in Monroe) wouldn’t take us. Willis Knighton in Shreveport wouldn’t take us.
“LSU-Oschner’s in Shreveport would be the closest place that could see Zach. So Jim called there and told them we were on our way. Then he started talking about St. Jude’s, and I just fell apart. And he gave me the biggest bear hug. This man I don’t even know, and he said, ‘It was a God-thing I was here today to see your son in this clinic.’ Because his nephew had had leukemia, he knew the signs.”
While Zach’s symptoms were very similar to those of leukemia, he would actually be diagnosed later with aplastic anemia and paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria. They were ultimately fueling Zach’s complete bone marrow failure and destroying his red blood cells.
Zach would be dependent on blood products, red blood cells and platelets from donors for the next few months.
“Our friends were holding blood drives,” Shannon said. “I mean, Ruston High was holding one. Everyone was so amazing.”
But Zach would need a long-term treatment solution: a transplant. So the entire family was tested to see who would be a match.
“None of us were a full match,” Shannon said. “When you don’t have a match, you start feeling hopeless.”
But hope was not lost.
Johns Hopkins in St. Petersburg, Fla., does research with “haplotype” transplants, which in layman’s terms can be defined as a half-match transplant.
By God’s grace, it would be Zach’s sister and Ruston High graduate Julianna who proved to be the haplo-identical match. She had no reservations about donating the bone marrow to save her brother’s life.
“I was scared, but I was ready,” Julianna said. “I wanted to do it immediately. Let’s get a move on things and get started.”
While the transplant was originally scheduled for October 27, Julianna contracted food poisoning the day of surgery. But once again, God’s hand allowed Julianna to get better quickly enough for the surgery the following day. The transplant needed to be done in a tightly choreographed schedule.
“Zach had just received radiation the day before (on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022), and he was supposed to receive my cells,” Julianna said. “So with me getting sick, it meant he wouldn’t receive the cells on that day. It was a scary situation, and they had 24 hours to get me better with fluids. Thankfully, they did.”
Once the transplant was complete, Zach had 100 days of recovery in Florida. There, Shannon would set up weekly parties to celebrate how many days they were past the transplant as a way to honor the doctors and nurses who were taking such good care of her son.
“It’s a passion of mine right now,” Shannon said. “Kids there have someone who’s there and people surrounding them trying to make things fun and giving them hope. I don’t know that adults have that same environment. I think they should have the same hope that things can go a better way.”
Now, for the McMillan family, October 28 will forever be the day Zach’s life was given back to him. Despite the ups and downs that come after this kind of recovery, the McMillan family will always have a reason to be thankful.
“It was so special,” Julianna said through tears about their one-year celebration last month. “I’m just glad that I got to eat supper with him and that he’s home and gets to do all the things he wants to do. So, I’m thankful. I’d say that’s the main word: thankful.”
Zach was fully released in late September this year to go back to the things he loves: fishing, hunting and being with his family. He expects there to be many, many more years of fishing for their boy on the pond.
“I cannot say enough for how thankful we are for our family, friends, church, and community for all their prayers and support through this,” Shannon concluded. “They really rallied behind us and encouraged Zach. But mostly we are thankful for God’s hand guiding us every step to Zach’s healing.”
