Back In The Game

February 17, 2021:

It had been a day like any other day. Cielita Clausell dropped off her son, Jaylen, at basketball practice after work. On the way home, she pulled into a church parking lot and checked her email. She was expecting a message from the organizers of a football camp Jaylen had attended that weekend. Having found what she was looking for, Cielita went on her way.

“By the time I made it home, I got the call Jaylen had collapsed,” she said. “By the time I got back to the high school, the ambulance was there.”

Cielita was not overly concerned at first. Jaylen seemed to be the epitome of health. He was a star athlete at Pine Forest High School in Pensacola, Fla.  The 16-year-old sophomore routinely dazzled fans with his physical fitness and athletic ability.  He had earned 11 college scholarship offers and was living the dream.

But calm turned into worry when Cielita saw her son’s lifeless body lying on the gymnasium floor, surrounded by players, as his coaches and paramedics performed CPR on him.

“I went bouncing in the gym smiling, like, where’s my kid?” Cielita said. “Then I saw a guy doing chest compressions on him.  I don’t know, that was the worst feeling I’ve ever had.”

Cielita watched helplessly as paramedics worked to revive her son. Several minutes passed before they were able to detect a faint pulse. In the next 72 hours, Jaylen was transported to four hospitals, where nurses and doctors worked feverishly to stabilize him and diagnose his condition. All the while, he lay unconscious.

“We were waiting to see how Jaylen would respond to his medication when he opened his eyes,” Cielita said. “My boy looked right at me.”

Naturally, Cielita went into mom mode. She looked into her son’s eyes and explained to him that he was very sick. Then Jaylen lost consciousness. That was during spring break on March 28, 2018. He spent five days on a ventilator, or life support.

“It happened on a Wednesday,” Cielita said. “Jaylen woke up at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Jacksonville on Easter Sunday. A week later they put a defibrillator in his chest.”

An automated implantable cardioverter defibrillator (AICD) is similar to a pacemaker. The device restores a normal heartbeat by sending an electric pulse or shock to the heart. They are used to prevent or correct an arrhythmia, a heartbeat that is uneven or that is too slow or too fast. Defibrillators also can restore the heart’s beating if the heart suddenly stops like Jaylen’s did.

Jaylen was released from Mayo Clinic Hospital two weeks after having the AICD implanted into his chest. Eager to move on with their lives, mother and son returned home to Pensacola and went back to normal.

Five months later, Jaylen collapsed again while visiting at a friend’s house.

“When he went into cardiac arrest this time, the defibrillator shocked his heart about 27 times,” Cielita said.  “God did that. I don’t see any other way it is possible than with God.”

Doctors diagnosed Jaylen with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, or ARVC, a rare genetic condition that weakens the heart and causes it to beat abnormally. Jaylen was placed on the national organ transplant waiting list. His heart was failing, and he would need a transplant if he was going to survive.

More than 109,000 women, children and men are awaiting life-saving organ transplants. The average wait time for heart transplants is more than six months. Thanks to the generosity of an organ donor, Jaylen received a heart after waiting just two months. On October 25, 2018, he received the precious Gift of Life.

“Organ donation gave me a second chance at life, and I’m very grateful for that opportunity,” said Jaylen, who turns 19 years old on March 11. “It will allow me to follow my dreams.”

And what are Jaylen’s dreams?

“I’m still a young man,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure it out.”

One thing is certain. The Clausells recently moved to Jacksonville, and Cielita vowed that no matter where she lives, she will share Jaylen’s story to honor God and the donor who saved her son’s life.

“I gain something from it every time, it never gets old,” Cielita said. “God sends a powerful message when his glory is shared.”

 

 

Read Jaylen’s testimonial below.