If you would like to partner with US Airways and Mercy Medical Airlift (MMA) to provide patients in need with charitable flights to distant, specialized medical facilities, we welcome you to the world of doing good.

Here’s one patient who has benefited from the gift of miles.

Armondre, age 12, suffers from brittle bone disease, a rare and painful disorder. For two years, he traveled with his mother on a train from their home in North Carolina to Montreal, Canada, for treatment at the Shriners Children’s Hospital. The long, two-day trip was “scary” and painful for Armondre, said his mother, Crystal. But the treatment isn’t available in the United States, so the trip was necessary. Fortunately, Crystal found MMA on the Internet, and MMA has been arranging flights for several years  using US Airways miles.

How it works

US Airways allows Dividend Miles members to donate miles to MMA in 1,000-mile increments. The company will match 1,000 miles, up to 25,000 miles, for every 5,000 miles donated to MMA.

To give to the Miles of Hope campaign, visit the US Airways website and designate y our donation to Mercy Medical Airlift. You’ll need to have your account number and password. Or, if you prefer, you can download this form, fill it out and mail it to MMA at 4620 Haygood Road, Suite 1, Virginia Beach, VA 23455.

The campaign ends on May 7, so please act now. And be sure to tell your friends and family.

Thank you for caring.

QUESTIONS? CALL MMA AT 757-318-9174.

March 27 was a momentous day at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in Baltimore. I had the privilege of attending a historic news conference where Richard’s face was unveiled and medical aspects of the transplant explained.  With me were two Angel Flight pilots, Steve Craven and Don Garlow, and my husband, Wayne. As noted by Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and leader of the transplant team, the 36-hour surgery was the most extensive face transplant ever performed, making headlines around the world.  

On the third day following his surgery, which began on March 19 at 4 a.m., “he wanted to see a mirror,” Rodriguez said. “It was one of the most emotional moments—he put the mirror down and thanked me and hugged me.”

The 37-year-old patient from Hillsville, Virginia had lived as a recluse for 15 years following a shotgun accident that caused the loss of his lips and nose, and resulted in limited movement of his mouth. Afterwards, he underwent numerous life-saving and reconstructive surgeries, but none fixed his face enough to allow him to rejoin society.

The unprecedented surgery in March included transplantation of the teeth, upper and lower jaw, part of the tongue and all facial tissue from the scalp to the base of the neck. Angel Flight has flown him 78 times to Baltimore and back, with 52 pilots providing the rides. I was happy that we were recognized during the question and answer period of the news conference after someone asked how Richard had gotten to the University of Maryland for the operation.

He is recovering much more quickly than doctors anticipated.  Six days after surgery, he was able to move his tongue and open and close his eyes. He also regained his sense of smell, a faculty that had been lost to him for 15 years.  ”He’s actually looking in the mirror, shaving and brushing his teeth, which we never even expected,” said Rodriguez.

I had spoken to Richard a few times before his operation. He asked about ordering Angel Flight logo wear. He said a documentary was being made of the whole process, and he wanted to give us visibility. “Angel Flight has been as important to me throughout this project as the doctors,” he said.

Richard, our prayers are with you and our wings are waiting to take you home whenever you are released from the hospital to start your new life.

Since 1998, Martha, 65, has battled ovarian cancer. It has now metastasized to her brain. Her 27-year-old daughter, Abby, was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer of a rare type. It too has spread to her brain and also her spine. If they were children, they would have been eligible for a Make-a-Wish dream vacation. But for older adults, specifically, those with terminal cancer, there’s no equivalent. That’s why Lennie Behe of Garner, North Carolina, started the Bucket List Dream Foundation.

Angel Flight mission coordinator MJ Sablan and I had the pleasure of meeting Lennie and one of her board members, Brinda Griffin, over lunch last week. Lennie explained how she came to create her foundation. “Over two-and-a-half years ago my mother was diagnosed with primary peritoneal cancer, a disease similar to ovarian cancer. I asked her this: If you could have a wish, what would it be? She said, ‘I would like to go back to Korea’ (her native country). That’s when I realized that we need to help the elderly, as well as children with cancer.” In her charity’s brochure, Lennie writes, “Our heart’s desire is to bless our mothers and fathers, grandparents or dear friends who have been diagnosed [with terminal cancer] with the means of fulfilling a final wish from their Bucket List…to provide…a final joyous experience, an extra special memory to carry with them and help bring them to a peaceful completion of their lives.”

Her mother’s illness isn’t the only time cancer has darkened Lennie’s world. At age four, her daughter, Alicia, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. “By the grace of God she survived cancer after struggling with it for five years.”  Her daughter is now 18. Lennie also lost a close friend to a malignant brain tumor. “He had taken an Angel Flight,” she said.

It was Angel Flight that Lennie thought of after receiving a letter from Martha’s husband, Joseph, requesting a special Bucket List wish for a Disney World vacation. She was able to raise $45,000 for the trip, holding jewelry parties and a raffle, as well as contributing some of their own money. Tickets to Disney and related theme parks as well as time share and hotel accommodations were procured for the family, including Joseph and Martha, Abby and her husband, Allen, and two grandchildren. But getting them from their home in Creedmore, North Carolina, to Orlando was a different matter. That’s when Lennie called MJ. She found two volunteer pilots willing to fly three passengers each to Florida and back.

After lunch, feeling that genuine friendships had been forged, we made plans to meet again in a couple of weeks. Angel Flight’s CEO and president, Ed Boyer, will be included to discuss other ways we might work together to carry the terminally ill to the places of dreams.

Sydney loves on Rooney, a certified seizure alert dog and devoted pet. Now 11, Sydney suffers from Dravet's Syndrome and ataxia, and has flown 14 times with Angel Flight to receive treatment at Children's Chicago Memorial Hospital.

2011 was an extraordinary year for Mercy Medical Airlift in terms of service. We provided assistance and charitable trips for 23,490 clients. Commercial airline flights numbered 9,714; Angel Flights, 832; air ambulance flights, 44; and Angel Bus, 1,802. The National Patient Travel Center processed 11,089 calls and emails.

Included in these figures are those for our military-related program, Air Compassion for Veterans (ACV).

From its founding in November 2006 until the end of December 2011, ACV provided 24,046 flights, and of those, 13,615 were  for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

We know the need for access to distant medical care is great and growing. At a staff meeting a couple of days ago, Cathy Kelly, who coordinates commercial airline flights, mentioned that the calls for requests had increased to 35-40 each day. Our Angel Flight mission coordinator, MJ Sablan, also attests to heavier call volume in recent days. “It’s hard to get my paperwork done because the phones never stop ringing,” she said. MJ averages 20-25 calls each day from patients, case workers and others requesting Angel Flights.

Each area of operations is experiencing the same trend. The folks here at MMA have never worked harder, and once again, the numbers tell the story. For the year 2010, we reported service to 22,256 clients; the year before that, to 21,003 clients. We are blessed to be able to help more and more patients and veterans every year.

But the recession is taking its toll on nonprofit organizations like Mercy Medical Airlift.

According to the website of the Barna Group, a leading research organization, “In the wake of the poor economy, many American donors have cut back on donations to churches and especially to other non-profit organizations, and they have become more pessimistic about the future of economic recovery…The findings are based upon a nationwide sample of 1,008 American adults, conducted in January and early February, 2010.”

Here at MMA we are experiencing a decline in contributions. We are doing more with less. But two things remain constant—our commitment to our mission—that no one in need is left medically stranded—and our insistence on conducting our affairs with integrity and transparency. You can find our financial statements on our website (http://mercymedical.org/about-us/financials/). You can visit www.CharityNavigator.org and search for Mercy Medical Airlift and see why we’ve earned the top 4-Star rating.

But what speaks louder than statistics and ratings and all the quantitative data collected daily and over time are the words from patients and families whose lives have been saved or transformed. “Thank you, Mercy Medical Airlift. I could never have done it without you. Thanks to you we still have my daughter with us.” “I cannot tell you how much help that was to us (free flight to MD Anderson) with all the other unavoidable expenses and stresses related to cancer.” “When a soldier becomes wounded, the family becomes wounded. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be with my son once again.”

We invite you to become a partner in our life-giving mission. Through your generous financial support, we can continue making the world better, one patient at a time.

www.MercyMedical.org/Give.

photo courtesy of G.WayneRhodes.com

I don’t know about you, but during the Christmas season I find myself to be more pensive than at other times of the year. The signs and symbols of the holidays surely lead to reflection:  evergreen trees fragrant with that wintry pine smell, outrageously gaudy lights competing in good fun from house to house, Nativity scenes, candles, carols, ribbons, elves—all of it year after year but never wearing out and, despite the secularization of the holiday known as Christmas, it will always and fundamentally be about God’s gift, Jesus Christ.

This brings me to the something else that moves me each year:  the outpouring of envelopes in the mail that comes each morning to our office, envelopes with generous checks of all amounts written with love in the memo to help people in need. I picture Mrs. Scotto at her kitchen table writing that monthly check or Mrs. Tucker clicking the give button on her computer in honor of her son, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. I picture the Rods and Cravens and Blands of this world, the Smiths and Forts and Joneses and Depasses and the countless other kind-hearted donors who are thinking about our patients, thinking about how hard their lives must be and what  it means to find hope in suffering. The checks come in day by day, each one a treasure, each one an extension of the great love that holds our universe together.

Thank you is a small phrase, but what other words do we have to praise the gift and giver?

By Suzanne Rhodes

This is what Jami’s babies are up to:

“His twinkle in his eyes you can’t resist.”

“Hunter smiles all the time when you look at him. He has the cutest little face. It lights up his whole face when you smile at him.”

“Quinn says momma and dada, and we are trying to teach him Uh-oh. He says ‘uh, uh, uh,’ and we say ‘ooo.’ It’s so cute!”

Quinn, Liam, and Hunter are triplets, and that is remarkable enough. But what is even more remarkable is that these children, now 16 months old, almost died during Jami’s pregnancy.

She had a rare condition known as Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome that required urgent medical treatment. Time was of the essence. “On Sunday (April 25) we found out that I had to go to Washington [to Seattle Evergreen Hospital]. They said to come now or I had a 90 percent chance of losing all three babies,” Jami said. “We had to fly there on Tuesday. But it would cost $1,200! We couldn’t afford it.” She and her husband, Patrick, live in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Patrick’s mother, Penny, found Mercy Medical Airlift on the Internet. “Penny called on Sunday and left a message. She got a call back from Jim Smith. She was crying and happy.”

Smith is MMA’s executive vice president. “In urgent situations like this, we are often able to provide the bridge to potentially life-saving treatment,” he said.

Smith purchased tickets for Jami and Patrick to travel on Tuesday with Alaska Airlines, arriving in time for her afternoon appointment. “He’s very nice,” Jami said. “A huge blessing.”

On Friday morning doctors performed the procedure. “I got a spinal block and could watch on TV while they were doing it. It was kind of neat. I got to see hands, feet and legs. One of the babies was grabbing the camera!” The couple flew back home on May 2.

On July 27, the 23-year-old mother delivered identical triplets: Quinn, Liam and Hunter. “I delivered by C-section six weeks early,” Jami said. She and her husband, Patrick, have another son, Michael, who was only two when his three brothers arrived.

Jami wrote us in August of this year to report that “the boys turned one on July 27 and are thriving, thanks to your program. I was left in tears that night just looking over newborn photos and remembering the scary stuff, and that they would not be here without your program. You gave them the only chance to survive, and I will never forget that!”

Angel Flight pilot Ron Calugar handles a stretcher patient with tender loving care.

Our volunteer pilots past and present just can’t help piling up good deeds on top of their Angel Flight service. Here are just a few examples: 

Joe Federico (Virginia) volunteers for the American Red Cross as a CPR, first aid, and oxygen administration instructor. 

Richard Love (Virginia) cycled for years to raise funds in bike tours for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and pulled in over $4,000 toward research to find a cure for the dreaded disease. He is active in Rotary Club and raised money for schools in underdeveloped countries. 

John Clough (Pennsylvania) runs a health-food wholesale distribution business and does volunteer work to help anyone in need. “My whole life is dedicated to helping people,” he says. 

Paul Connor is an optometrist from Ohio who has donated his time and professional skill to provide eye care for residents of Kingston, Jamaica. He also trains locals to perform optical work and manufacture eyeglasses, which are sold at a minimal cost or given to clients unable to afford them.   

Rev. John Hoffmann (Virginia) has participated in numerous humanitarian endeavors. He flew medical missions in Tanzania and conducted assessment work of refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda. 

Ron Calugar, also of Virginia, has donated his considerable computer knowledge and ability to create databases for Angel Flight and other partner charities of Mercy Medical Airlift that increase efficiency and accuracy in the complex business of mission coordination.

Michigan’s Dick Lawrence founded Kid’s Wings, a medical flight charity that mainly helps children but also includes adults in need of access to medical treatment. He’s flown over 165 missions for this group alone!  Dick fills a special niche as a “pilot of last resort” in his region.  When the various coordinating agencies cannot find other volunteers, they will often contact Dick to see if he can do it.  He’s their “go to” guy in this area and tries to be available to respond on a moment’s notice. 

I could name many more pilots and many more feats of kindness but haven’t time or space to call them out. Richard Love, who retired his wings a couple of years ago, summed up the spirit behind the service of our generous pilots when he said, “Giving to others becomes pure joy.”

All within two weeks right here in Hampton Roads. 

The fire is in the Dismal Swamp. It began with a lightning strike over a month ago. Despite significant rainfall from Hurricane Irene, smoldering continues in the deep, organic peat. We smell the smoke in the parking lot at Mercy Medical Airlift.

The 5.8 earthquake of August 23 rattled our office and shook our nerves. With the epicenter in Mineral, Virginia, it was the strongest quake to jolt the Commonwealth in a century. Fortunately, there was no damage to us, but others as far away as Ohio and New York felt its effects, with damage to show for it, such as cracks in the Washington Monument and collapsed roofs. My sister in Alexandria reported that her town home flooded when the quake caused a water pipe to break.

 And then, Irene. On August 25, our “go team” of employees involved in flight operations packed up their laptops, spouses, children and pets and headed inland to Lynchburg, Virginia to avoid the predicted monster storm and have the ability to carry on operations. These were for patient flights and potential disaster conditions requiring our help with air transportation as we did during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In fact, Angel Flight worked around the clock to arrange some 2,600 flights using our volunteer pilots and enlisting the aid of corporate jets to transport disaster relief personnel, blood supplies and other small cargo into the stricken Gulf region, and evacuees out of there to safety and in many cases to resettlement.

Fortunately, Irene wasn’t “all that,” and here in Virginia Beach, damage was minimal from the storm that tromped through on August 27. My husband, Wayne, and I evacuated to Tennessee on Thursday, fearing our first floor apartment would be flooded and without power. I hurriedly packed and moved books and other items, including Wayne’s ostrich-skin cowboy boots, to higher ground, and planted my heirloom Boston rocker firmly in the bathtub. We returned on Sunday night to full power, no damage to boots, rocking chair, or anything else in our apartment, finding only a snake  in the bathroom, which Wayne kindly disposed of while I looked the other way from the farthest room. 

Hopefully, by God’s good grace, the Dismal Swamp fires will soon be extinguished, the earth’s tectonic plates will stay stable, and the hurricane season will go out like a lamb.