Nearly 14 years old, Braylynn has had 56 surgeries since the age of 2.
“I always wanted to be like the other girls at school. I wanted to go to sleepovers and spas, but I couldn’t because I had to walk home every night with my machine and my backpack.” was,” she said.
Braylynn was born with gastrostomy, a birth defect. In this congenital disorder, there is a hole in the abdominal wall near the navel that allows the intestine to extend outside the body. Gastric separation is extremely rare, with an estimated 1 in 1,953 women born with her.
Braylynn and her mother, Maleah Sallinger, live in Louisiana, where doctors were able to repair gastroschisis, which left her with short bowel syndrome and a shortened small bowel volume. A normal baby she is born with a small intestine of 250 centimeters, but Braylin she was born with a small intestine of 25 centimeters. The shortened intestine did not function normally and could not absorb nutrients like a normal small intestine.
“None of the doctors we spoke to had any hope for her,” says Maleah. “One doctor gave us two weeks. No, it was like a dead end.”
Braylynn, aged just 2 and 19, and her mother came to Omaha, Nebraska after hearing about the success stories of Nebraska medicine. Maleah said she heard about Nebraska Medicine through a complete parenteral nutrition provider in Braylynn. TPN is a way of getting nutrients into the body through a vein.
“I knew I had to do something. I didn’t want to lose my child,” Marea said. “Whether or not I got 25 opinions from my doctor, I had to know that I did what I could to save my child.”
Nebraska Medicine transplant surgeon David Mercer, MD, who has served as director of the Bowel Rehabilitation Program since 2008, is now Braylynn’s primary care physician. He affectionately calls her Bray and remembers how little she was when she came to the Nebraska Medical Center.
“She was very ill, a little thin and had a big belly,” recalls Dr. Mercer. “She needed to do something urgently to make her better.”
Dr. Mercer, nurses and nutritionists worked tirelessly with surgery and medications to repair Braelin’s gut without the need for a transplant. Over the years more and more people have joined the team and they all form a very close bond. Their common goal was to make Bralyn better and help her live her best life.
“It was really nice that we were able to stay together from when she was two years old until she was almost 14,” Dr. Mercer explains.
And as the years went by for Bralyn and her family, so did their feelings.
“One day I was smiling, the next I was crying,” Marea recalls. “It was just a rollercoaster, but the team always supported me no matter what.”
Today, they have a very close mother-daughter relationship, which Marea attributes in large part to a lot of “mother time” from traveling together to Omaha for so long. Braylin can participate in her favorite activities and even eat and drink what she likes. Her interests are wide-ranging, which speaks to how balanced she is.
“Braylin is a very rural, outdoorsy girl who loves to fish,” says Dr. Mercer. “But she also loves being on the school’s dance team, and she’s even entered beauty pageants.” I say it will.
“I feel free to do whatever I want,” Braylynn smiles.