When Alison Amato of Tyrone RD 2 gave birth to Zachary Bishop on Set. 27, 2003, neither she or her husband Mike had any idea what lie ahead.
After Zachary was born, he was assessed by a pediatrician and flown directly to Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. There, doctors diagnosed him with Neuroblastoma, the third most common cancer malignancy found in infants.
Zachary spent the first few weeks of his life in the NICU, having surgery to remove both his right kidney and adrenal gland. During these early setbacks, things took another turn when Alison was diagnosed with a pulmonary emboli and admitted to another intensive care unit just blocks away from her son.
In February, Zachary was again diagnosed with Neuroblastoma in his liver and now there’s another trying road ahead for the Amato family. Recently, Zachary was back in Pittsburgh for chemotherapy treatments and will make several more similar trips in the coming months.
With Mike trying to maintain his full-time job, and Alison unable to return to work while caring for Zachary and coping with her own medical problems, Kathleen Edmiston, Zachary’s aunt, has taken it upon herself to reach out and find support for this overwhelmed family.
“This family is just dealing with way too much right now,” said Edmiston. “They don’t know where to turn next.”
According to Edmiston, the failure in the social system for helping families dealing with crisis during Zachary’s ordeal happened almost immediately. She felt maybe an intern social worker assigned to the case wasn’t fully prepared to handle a situation such as Zachary’s.
She never poked fingers, but said there should be more efficient and better prepared social services in place for these kinds of cases.
“What I’m trying to do is get our word out there and try to find some help for this family and also maybe find some families in the area that are experiencing similar situations to help us through,” said Edmiston
