Kim Zolciak-Biermann couldn't be prouder of her 8-year-old son, Kash.
On Wednesday, the Don’t Be Tardy star, 42, revealed to her fans that Kash — whom she shares with husband Kroy Biermann — had reconstructive face surgery in November for the injuries he sustained after his dog bit him in a terrifying 2017 accident.
"I waited to share this story until my baby was healed! Kash is such a trooper the toughest, bravest little boy I have ever met," the proud mom wrote on Instagram. "Last month Kash had reconstructive surgery from the dog bite 3 years ago. We knew the night of the bite/surgery that he most likely would need another surgery in the future to correct the injury."
"It was pretty severe and due to the severity of the swelling that night our plastic surgeon Dr. Joseph Williams (the best) did the very best he could," Kim continued. "I’ll never forget that day as long as I live and as much as we thought we 'put it in the back of our minds' when Kash came out of surgery this time it hit Kroy and I pretty hard."
Kim added that the family had "a rough couple of days" after the surgery.
"Kroy and I cried many many times along side Kash. We sat in the plastic surgeons parking lot (only one parent could go in and I knew Kroy could handle it better than me) but when Kash/Kroy came out and sat in the backseat with Kash on his lap and tears streamed down both their faces," she told fans. "I could barely breathe."
"My heart was broken that we even had to go through all this again," Kim explained, adding that she reached out to close friends for prayers and support as they relived the bad memories of when Kash was attacked by the family's dog, Sinn.
Three days after his surgery, Kim said that Kash woke up and told her, "Mom I feel great!".
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"I knew we were on the road to recovery. I didn’t cry again until 10 days later at Kj’s basketball game we took a picture together (last pic)and I realized how incredible he looks and how blessed we are to have Dr. Williams and so many others that truly care," Kim wrote.
The reality star also reached out to pal Michael Giovanni Rivera, a celebrity personal trainer, to see if the family could get a motivational message for Kash from the young boy's favorite MMA fighter, Conor McGregor. Sure enough, the Irish UFC Champion delivered a heartwarming video message for Kash, telling the boy that he draws inspiration from his victory over the dog.
"Conor’s video had me in tears I could barely speak, I mean it’s CONOR MCGREGOR but it was also his MESSAGE," Kim said. "There are no [words to] express my gratitude 2 not only Gio, but Conor, my supportive husband, our surgeon, my family & friends."
In April 2017, Kim and Kroy, 35 — who are parents to Kim's children from previous relationships, Brielle, 23, and Ariana, 19, and also share sons KJ, 9, and twins Kane and Kaia, 7 — faced the nightmare of their lives when their dog bit Kash and nearly blinded him. The incident left Kash in the hospital for 4 days, with the scratch being a millimeter away from his eye.
"It was like a bad dream," Kim told PEOPLE at the time. "Our dog Sinn is heavily, heavily trained. Kash is his favorite. It made absolutely no sense to any of us. This is nothing I ever thought I’d be dealing with in my life."
Sinn and Kash had been playing outside alongside KJ when Kroy was using a leaf blower to clean the yard. Startled by the leaf blower, Sinn attacked Kash.
"Being right there, it was just wrong place, wrong time, wrong circumstances. The perfect storm," Kroy told PEOPLE. "Had one thing been different, it wouldn’t have happened. You try to say, 'What would I have done differently?' And there are a lot of things now, but you can’t change any of it. You just have to learn from it and grow from it."
The couple ultimately decided to keep Sinn, the husky-boxer mix, as they had rescued the dog three years prior. "Sinn and Kash have been best friends since the day we got Sinn," Kim said. "Kash is an absolute animal lover, and Sinn is definitely his favorite, without a shadow of a doubt. That’s why it was extra hard."
"I genuinely felt a deep rage for what Sinn had done to my son, but Kash loves him," Kroy added. "We didn’t want him to live a life with a phobia of dogs. We wanted him to understand it wasn’t his fault."
Since the incident, Kash and Sinn have once again become the best of friends, as the parents took the incident as an opportunity to teach their family about the warning signs to look out for if your dog is being aggressive.
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