{"id":437,"date":"2025-08-06T15:33:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T15:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforgillianstpiat\/?p=437"},"modified":"2025-12-01T18:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:38:09","slug":"thank-you-kayla-and-grace-idaho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforgillianstpiat\/2025\/08\/06\/thank-you-kayla-and-grace-idaho\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank you, Kayla and Grace, Idaho"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"618\" height=\"772\" src=\"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforgillianstpiat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6523\/2025\/10\/image-22.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforgillianstpiat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6523\/2025\/10\/image-22.png 618w, https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforgillianstpiat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6523\/2025\/10\/image-22-240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Angie Lucas (Gillian&#8217;s Aunt): &#8220;This story \ud83e\udd79\ud83e\udd79\ud83e\udd79. My beautiful niece had a ground-breaking transplant surgery in March to give her a chance at a normal life, after years of debilitating pain and regular hospitalizations for a rare genetic condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her second cousin, Kayla (my cousin\u2019s daughter), who has severe medical challenges of her own, organized a fundraiser for COTA for Gillian&#8217;s TPIAT as her senior project\u2014even though the two hadn\u2019t ever met, except maybe when they were babies, since one grew up in Idaho and the other in California and Utah.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kayla and the generous community of Grace, Idaho, raised nearly $8,000* (!!!) in cash and online donations for the Children\u2019s Organ Transplant Association in honor of Gillian\u2019s TPIAT (Total Pancreatectomy with Islet Auto-Transplantation).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The day Kayla surprised her with the check, Kayla was about a week out from ankle surgery (and wearing a boot!), and Gillian had just been released from the hospital, where she was being treated for diabetic complications.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gillian\u2019s recovery is ongoing, but her time in pain and in the hospital is just a fraction of what it was before the TPIAT procedure, which is so rare that even many hospital staff and providers have never heard of it\u2014and have no idea it\u2019s possible to live without a pancreas!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m so inspired by Kayla and by Gillian. Their courage. Their compassion. Their perseverance. And the difference kindness and generosity can make.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>THANK YOU GRACE, IDAHO! You truly live up to your name. \ud83d\ude4f\ud83c\udffb\ud83d\ude4f\ud83c\udffb\ud83d\ude4f\ud83c\udffb&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Angie Lucas (Gillian&#8217;s Aunt): &#8220;This story \ud83e\udd79\ud83e\udd79\ud83e\udd79. My beautiful niece had a ground-breaking transplant surgery in March to give her a chance at a normal life, after years of debilitating pain and regular hospitalizations for a rare genetic condition. Her second cousin, Kayla (my cousin\u2019s daughter), who has severe medical challenges of her own, organized [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2189,"featured_media":438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v26.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thank you, Kayla and Grace, Idaho - COTA for Gillian&#039;s TPIAT<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforgillianstpiat\/2025\/08\/06\/thank-you-kayla-and-grace-idaho\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thank you, Kayla and Grace, Idaho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Angie Lucas (Gillian&#8217;s Aunt): &#8220;This story \ud83e\udd79\ud83e\udd79\ud83e\udd79. 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