AH-HA, I have learned how to update and create posts on this website, so what does that mean? I will be able to put out more content and you all do not have to wait two to three years at a time for a new update. With that being said, let’s dive into what life has been like since my last update!

The last update you know of was right after my 17th surgery in 2022 and as I am writing this, it is 2025. A lot has happened in those two and a half to three years, but the first thing to go over is my football season. Unfortunately, I was not able to participate for the rest of the season since my surgery was smack in the middle of season, but once I was cleared, it was go time. I was back to the grind and I was an absolute unit conditioning and in the weight room.

Top of Santiago Peak w/ Iain

Since I was not able to practice, I was mountain biking a ton and that was one of the reasons that I was in really good shape. That December, I summited Modjeska Peak and Santiago Peak all in one ride, it was a 33.87 mile ride with 5,740 feet of elevation gain. This was one of my biggest rides and it took a lot of hard work to be able to do so. To train for that ride, I was riding four to five times a week on top of the football weight training and conditioning. From January to June it was literally, go to school, weight train, mountain bike, maybe play some video games, eat and repeat. The only event that went on was my trip to Florence, Italy to watch my cousin get married. 

Our Hotel View of Florence

The trip was a week long mission in between my busy training schedule. Upon arriving back to the US, it was one week of light lifting to prepare my system for max week. Max week is a week to see the maximum amount of weight that you can get while doing certain lifts. The week was a bit of a rough transition since my body sort of got used to the time change but not fully. I pushed through it and it was onto my max lift which went great. My max bench was 325 lbs, back squat was 455 lbs and clean was 265 lbs which equals a total of 1,045 lbs putting me in the 1,000 lb club for the football program. There were over 120 athletes on the team and only around 25 athletes made that club and one of those athletes was me.

Making that club gave me a huge confidence boost going into the summer. It was a hot summer but the work never stopped, it was four to five times a week in the weight room and conditioning on the field and six times a week working on the agility ladder and football technique with maybe one to two rides on the mountain bike a week. I was very happy with how I was doing and I was ready for the next football season.

August came rolling around and it was time for all of that hard work to pay off. The first practice ended and it was time for the Chapman mile. This is our conditioning test for the year and it consists of going back and forth, from endzone to endzone, 17 times. That years test went great for me, I finished in the top seven of both defensive and offensive lineman. The next couple of days, we had practices and meetings all day which went well. Then came day five, my practice reps went from 12 to 16 reps down to zero. I was puzzled as to why, so I asked the position coach and he wanted to talk after practice. 

It was a great career

I spent all of practice doing my thing in indies and trying to figure out what I did wrong. Practice ended and we started talking and that is when he told me that he is starting to weed out the individuals who are not going to play. I was taken back by this information, processed it and asked him “what specifically is the reason why,” and it took about two minutes for him to respond and he told me “it’s not that you aren’t good, it’s just that there are better people than you.” That hit hard and I was left with a really tough decision to make and I chose to finish school, move on and work on getting real-life experience. 

That night was bitter sweet, but it was time to move on. The next week was a bit weird for me, the past 10 years of my life grinding in school and football were closing down. Since playing football was over, I still was not quite ready to step away from the game. That fall, I started coaching high school football for the Laguna Beach High School Breakers, the head coach of that team was my freshman high school football coach.

It was kind of bizarre, I never had aspirations of being a football coach but it turns out, I liked it and I think I am pretty good at it. I assisted the varsity offensive line and coached the freshman and sophomore, offensive line for the 2023 season. The season went well, undefeated on the frosh level and 9-2 on the varsity level. While I was completing school and coaching, I was also training for some mountain bike racing. I wanted to start racing because I have always had a competitive fire raging inside of me. 

Race Prep

The first season that I raced did not go to plan, well lets be real here, I did not even race. The first race was slated to be February 4, 2024 and it had been raining all week long. It stopped raining the day before so I thought we were in the clear but that was not the case. It was race day and I woke up with the surprise of light rain and was mentally preparing for some horrible conditions. My friend and I decided to drive up to the races together, and that drive was full of hearing rain splatter against the windshield. An hour and a half later, we exited the freeway, only 10 minutes away from the race, when we get the e-mail that the race was cancelled. It was a shame, we woke up early and spent a long drive together only to turn around and head back. That was a bummer but hey, it happens and I will be back in the next one, or so I thought. The next two races were just as the first, it was rainy, cold and I did not have it in me to race. That season was wasted so it was on to next season and finishing school.

Graduating w/ Aaron

As school was closing up, I was getting seriously stressed out. I needed to finish 5 classes when I had scheduled 4 classes and on top of that, I dropped out of one of the classes, Spanish.  Following that spring, I took the two remaining courses over the summer. It was my internship and the Spanish class. The struggle in Spanish continued so I was reluctant that class was online. My degree required an internship and my internship was at CORE Athletic Training in Newport Beach, CA. They offer kids camps in the summer and on holiday weeks/ weekends during the school year, and they offer recess and after school programs during the school year. I was an intern over the summer which was really fun, they teach the kids competition by having the interns and coaches play in certain games. That meant I was able to hit kids with dodgeballs (that is the game they play most with different variations). 

Laguna Beach 2024 Coaching Staff

My internship wrapped up in a few months and they offered me a part time position. I took it and it was really fun. It was the start of the school year and our recess and after school programs went into full swing. As I was coaching at CORE, the season was heating up at Laguna Beach and we set out to become league champions for the fourth time in a row. It was a very good year for us, we went undefeated again on the frosh level and varsity went 10-1 with another league championship. If that does not sound busy enough I was creating content on the side and I was mountain biking. Training for the upcoming race season was going well and my numbers on social media were going up, life was good, too good. 

Earlier that fall, in October, something weird was going on. I did not really know what was going on, I thought I had a big pimple and to spare you I’ll just say it was in a certain place. It affected how I was able to move around but eventually that week it died down. Well, it was not completely died down, I still had a lump where the ‘pimple’ was. I went to a couple dermatologists and they both said the same thing: “pilonidal cyst.”  A pilonidal cyst is a growth that forms, mainly on hairier athletes, due to a hair follicle that breaks off and re enters your body right above the butt crack but below the tail bone. They told me it needed to be removed by a surgeon because the nerve endings are by where the cyst is. 

This is when I meet my next surgeon, Dr. Yosef Nasseri out of Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, CA. We had a consultation and then planned a date to get it removed. That meant mountain bike training was on hold and I was not able to work as much. The date was set to December 17, 2024 and my 18th surgery was underway.

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Well, this was bound to happen, my 17th surgery. You might ask yourself, “how did Zach get to surgery 17 without 16?”

The answer is, I had surgery 16. It happened over the summer, July 11, 2022, and it was just wisdom teeth. It’s not related to the brain tumor, but I was still put under and cut open by a surgeon. It was an easy procedure and it went super smooth. A week after I got them removed, I was back to normal and active once again.

A month later it was time for fall football camp at Chapman University where I play and go to school.

It was the fourth day of camp, and I was doing conditioning with the team, then I had to use the restroom. At the end of conditioning, I jogged over to the locker room, where the restrooms are, and went. There was just a slight problem upon going, my urine was bloody. This was typical for me. I would workout hard and have “hematuria,” which is the presence of blood in the urine. It went on for a bit after 2020, and I thought this was just a side effect from the kidney stones in 2017. This was a little bit of a different situation this time because this was the fourth day in a row that this happened. It usually lasts about one or two urinations and back to normal. Since it was going on for so long, I had a decision to make, to either suck it up or tell the trainers. I was “on the fence” about this situation for the entire walk back to the field. It is a super short walk but it felt like forever. When I hit the field my decision was made, and that was to tell the trainers.

Not my proudest moment, this was a hard thing to do since my season last year ended with an injury. The head athletic trainer sent me to urgent care, but it was not that urgent. We had practice in the evening and the urgent care was not open at that time. So, I went the following day in the morning. I sat there and waited, then I was called back for X-Ray, and then back to the lobby. I waited longer to see the doctor at the urgent care, and the time to go back finally came. I went back, the doctor asked some questions, gave me some papers saying that I needed certain tests.

4cm Kidney Stone

A month later, I found out that my left kidney was littered with kidney stones and one stone was around 4 cm. It was a bit bigger than a golf ball and that kind of stone could not be passed, so the urologist gave me three options. Two options would take multiple procedures, and one of the options would mean just one surgery. Since I want to play football in the fall of 2023, surgery was the best option for me. This option meant an overnight stay because they had to go through my back to get the stones removed. It was not how I intended the 2022 season to go since I was slated to be one of the top guys for my position. At that time I could not think of that because I needed to focus on my health.

The next step was to schedule surgery, and that was another journey in itself. Due to the COVID pandemic, surgery was backed up and that made it very difficult to get a date at a hospital that I wanted. After a couple days of figuring out scheduling, I was able to get a surgery date. I was scheduled for Friday, October 14, 2022 at Orange Coast Memorial Hospital. When I was first given this option, I was a bit nervous because I had never heard of this hospital.

I went in for my noon surgery in the morning, and upon getting checked in, the hospital did not have any release forms so my parents could get my surgical information. Since the hospital still had COVID protocols in place, my parents had to wait in the lobby as I was taken back to pre-op. I was getting ready in pre-op and after about 30 minutes my parents were allowed back, so they came back to say their “love you’s” and “goodbye’s.”  The case that was before me took a little while longer so I ended up getting delayed about an hour. My mother was doing NPO with me so she was starving and the delay really showed her colorful side. I was not too happy about it but you have to stay composed.

About an hour later, transport came in and said that it was time to go. They wheeled me back and it was about to happen again.

I woke up, not in pain, but in a state of great confusion. Oh yeah, that’s right, and with another catheter.  My mind was super foggy and I was super tired. We do have a magic formula for my surgeries which allows me to come out of anesthesia without nausea or agitation – NO FENTYNAL – only Propofol and a little Versed and/or IV Tylenol for pain. I had zero reason to be tired because I was just out for a couple hours. I remember that my surgeon came back and told me that the surgery was a success. I also remember asking for my parents, which was not allowed because of COVID protocols. I was starting to have that mental fog roll away from my mind and was starting to be more coherent. The staff noticed that and called transport to get me wheeled up to my room.

I was wheeled up around 6 o’clock at night, dinner had just wrapped up and I was just out of surgery and starting to get a bit hungry. They managed to get me leftovers from dinner, and when I opened the box that it was in, it did not look very appetizing.  To my surprise, the food – meatloaf – was actually good, well not the mashed potatoes, they tasted like a cardboard box and were super dry. The food that I got was not substantial enough to keep me nourished for the night, so I asked my dad if he could grab In-N-Out.

After a great In-n-Out meal the clock turned to 8 PM and that was the end of visitation, so my parents had to go. The hospital did not allow visitors to stay overnight with me due to COVID. I was starting to feel like a lard as my parents left and asked if I could go on a walk. The nurse on the intercom said something but the speaker was glitchy so I couldn’t hear and just said “ok.” I sat there in my room for about 30 minutes, and no one came. I buzzed again to ask and then a different nurse came in and asked what I needed.

I told him and he helped me get up and we started walking. The other nurse came over to me at the end of the hall and she didn’t look too happy. I started walking back and once we hit my room she told me why.

Apparently the orders given to her was that I was to be put on bedrest because my blood pressure was too high. That is what she was trying to tell me over the intercom, but like I said it glitched out and I didn’t hear her properly. I was pretty surprised to hear that when I sat down, so she took my blood pressure just in case. It turned out that the walk lowered it and it was back to normal. From past surgeries and hospital stays, “they” say my blood pressure is  high, but, if you take it lying down it may be, but sitting up it’s normal Be aware that blood pressure may be positional so have your nurse take it both lying down and sitting up.  I then put on a movie and it was off to sleep.

I woke up around 3 AM with it being pretty chilly in my room, it was loud in the hospital, and to top it off, there was a thunderstorm taking place outside. I tried and tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t, and the next five hours were spent trying to sleep.

The morning came and it was 8AM, that meant shift change, it also meant visitation started. My mom was late, which was bad because she had Starbucks and I was pretty excited about that. Since she was running late, the nurse decided to take my catheter out, and BOOM, I was freed from that horrid tube. Next thing was to get a CT scan done to make sure the surgery got everything in my kidney. The report took a while to get back so my nurse put me on NPO right when my mom showed up with the Starbucks. I was not happy, hangry as the cool people say. The repost came in and my nurse told me that I could eat, finally. I ate, went to the restroom and my nurse started getting me ready for discharge. She was on it, my discharge happened so quickly and I was out of there. Transport wheeled me to the car and it was adios to Orange Coast Memorial and the great staff that took care of me.

I watched my team kick our rivals butts later that night, and it was on to recovery. Wait, I still had the stent in my kidney, which was weird because it would tickle my bladder anytime I moved. The appointment to get it removed was a week after surgery, and it got removed. The process to remove it was not fun so I’m just going to leave it at that. Once it was removed, it was on to recovery, for real.

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