 When four year old Kyle travels with Angel Flight™ he is accompanied by his mom and his buddy, Junior. As a matter of fact, Kyle does not leave home without him. Junior is not a younger brother and he is not a pet of some sort, he is Kyle’s new kidney. While the kidney is new to Kyle, it is actually 34 years old. That is because Kyle’s kidney once belonged to his dad. Too big to fit where Kyle’s other kidneys once lived, Kyle’s doctors made a home for Junior in Kyle’s abdomen.
When Kyle was two years old he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, which is a rare occurrence in someone as young as Kyle. After surgery, chemotherapy and dialysis, both kidneys called it quits. Kyle was going to need a kidney transplant.
Once the transplant was complete, the question became: how were Kyle and his mom going to get from Rochester, New York to Boston, Massachusetts for his very time sensitive tests each week in Boston? These tests start very early in the morning and don’t end until early afternoon - tests that would make sure that Junior was getting along with his new surroundings that his cancer was gone and that everything was functioning properly.
Traveling by car for Kyle and Junior would not be an option. The weekly 14-hour round-trip car rides would be exhausting for both he and his mother, and extremely uncomfortable for a four year old who only three months ago had a kidney transplant and who recently learned how to walk. Commercial air travel would not be an option either. Weekly round-trip tickets for two for an indefinite amount of time would not only exhaust a family financially but would be unhealthy for Kyle’s immune system: too many people with too many germs.
Kyle takes great care of Junior; he waters him often by drinking 2½ liters of water a day and he tries to protect him by using hand sanitizer and other precautions to prevent him from catching a bug. Kyle’s kidney is high maintenance. He will forever fight his new surroundings. Therefore, Kyle needs to take special medication to ensure that his body will keep Junior happy; medications that make Kyle much more susceptible to viruses and disease.
Kyle has been traveling with Angel Flight since August and is doing very well.
"Angel Flight provides us not just flights but the ability to see our son's medical providers in a timely manner. Angel Flight pilots are not just pilots but responsible, caring individuals who donate their personal time and airplanes while keeping safety as one of their top priorities for my family. And Angel Flight allows my family more time so that we can be together, AT HOME, as a family," says Kyle's mom.
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