A girl from Houston received a life-saving organ transplant with the help of the non-profit organization AeroAngel.

Jaylin lives with a birth defect called gastroschisis, a condition in which a hole near the navel allows the baby’s intestines to grow out of the body.

HOUSTON. Jaylene is a “typical” 9-year-old girl. She loves to dance, watch TikTok videos and cook.

“She’s so brave and very spontaneous.”

Jaylin lives with a birth defect called gastroschisis, a condition in which a hole near the navel allows the baby’s intestines to grow out of the body.

Since birth, Jaylin has been on the Pittsburgh hospital’s donor list for a small bowel transplant, but has missed at least two opportunities for life-saving surgery.

Breathy Bradley learned of Jalyn’s plight at the Herman Children’s Memorial Hospital.

“The nurses told me that no one ever comes to see her,” Bradley said. “They said that Jaylin would be taken to the emergency room and she would be left alone for a few weeks.”

When Jaylene was 3 years old and in foster care, Bradley, who raised and adopted other children with complex medical needs, adopted her.

Because organ recipients often need to get to the hospital within hours of becoming available, Bradley began paying for flight health insurance to cover the cost of last-minute airfare bookings.

But after years of payments, he discovered that the company was not paying for flights to Pittsburgh.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was one of the few hospitals that offered the surgery that Jaylene needed.

“I never had a taste of losing hope, but it just blew out from under our feet when I found out about it,” Bradley said.

When Jaylene fell ill in February 2022, doctors put her on the list for a kidney transplant.

“The kidney will buy us time,” Bradley said.

In November, a UPMC social worker saw an email from AeroAngel, a charity offering services for children who are too sick to fly commercially but don’t need an air ambulance.

Marc Pestal founded the organization in 2010 and says it is a network of jet donors and professional pilots who volunteer their time.

“There was no other group in the country with the model we use,” said Pestal, himself a pilot.

Pestal said that when he contacted Bradley, he told her that the organization had never flown transplant flights before.

“Basically, we said to the Pittsburgh hospital, ‘We will try and hope everything goes well,’” Pestal said.

Just a few weeks later, while hosting a Christmas party for his kids, Bradley got a call: Jaylin needed a kidney.

Hours later, an anonymous donor sent a plane from Pittsburgh to pick them up from Houston Executive Airport.

“We went to the airport, they put us on the plane, and when we landed, a car service was arranged – it was very simple,” Bradley said.

Luckily, the surgery went just as well and after a few weeks, Jailene was able to return home.

She still needs a small intestine transplant, but while Bradley works to get her back on the donor list, a new kidney helps Jaylin become a normal child again.

Bradley created GoFundMe to help raise money for Jailene’s medical bills.

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The post A girl from Houston received a life-saving organ transplant with the help of the non-profit organization AeroAngel.

first appeared on Texas Standard News.

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