Evans teen donating instruments to hospital through Make-A-Wish Georgia

EVANS, Ga. (WJBF) – One Evans teen who overcame a serious medical condition is now helping others going through the same thing.

15-year-old Taylor Brown was only 12 when she was diagnosed with a severe and rare type of anemia.

“Aplastic anemia, which is a bone marrow failure disorder in which my white blood cells started attacking my bone marrow,” Taylor said. “It was obviously very scary, I had killed over eight-five percent of my bone marrow cells at that point.”

Luckily, there was a solution.

“My younger sister is a hundred-percent match for bone marrow cells so she was able to give me my life saving transplant,” Taylor said.

Before the transplant, Taylor used music to cope during her stay at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

“The music therapist would come in a couple times a week with whatever instrument of your choosing, whether it was an acoustic bass or a guitar which is what I picked, and you would pick a song and they would help you learn it,” she said.

Now, she’s planning to use her wish through Make-A-Wish Georgia to donate instruments to the hospital’s music therapy program.

“It was such an impactful program for me and it really helped me cope and it really brought me through that time on the transplant ward,” Taylor said. “So, I’m just hoping all these other kids that will inevitably have to go through what I went through are able to have a better opportunity to cope.”

“For her to do her Make-A-Wish to give back, I think it’s pretty impressive,” said Jeff Brown, Taylor’s father. “That’s not knocking anyone else that takes trips or anything like that, but for a fifteen year old kid… At fifteen, I would’ve probably taken a trip or done something different. So, it’s definitely a proud parent moment.”

The hospital’s music and art therapy programs rely on donations.

“That would be great to get that awareness out there and for people to continue donating blood,” Jeff Brown said.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s new hospital will open in September and Taylor hopes to donate all of the instruments by November.

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