Family with Middle Georgia Ties Seek Help for Sick Daughter from Bonaire Salon

BONAIRE, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – A family in Oklahoma City with ties to Middle Georgia is turning to a local salon to help their little girl.

Tristan Jade Kaminer has a disease so rare, it doesn’t even have a name.

Ginger Huff, a family friend, owns Salon Fusion in Bonaire. She’s a master at her craft, with a clientele that includes country music stars and just ordinary Middle Georgians. But on her front desk, a picture of a less famous, but quite adorable client.

4-month-old Tristan and her parents, Caleb and Tasha spoke to 41NBC’s Andrew Reeser via satellite Tuesday. The young couple in Oklahoma City is going through a very hard time.

“I felt really helpless because no one at the hospital could really help us,” says Caleb Kaminer.

Baffled doctors call baby Tristan a silent aspirator. Think of it this way: the feeling of food going down the wrong pipe when you swallow. When Tristan would eat with a spoon, food would go down the wrong pipe, never getting to her stomach. Instead, when Tasha would feed her, the food would fill Tristan’s lungs, essentially drowning her. Now, she can only eat with a feeding tube that goes through her nose and into her stomach.

“She would choke…and I knew something wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t know what it could be,” her mother Tasha Ray told 41NBC.

Doctors across the nation can’t figure out how to help Tristan. So Caleb appealed to his Facebook friends in his hometown of Warner Robins, asking them for answers. “We’ve actually had neurologists reach out to us and other doctors through Facebook telling us what we need to ask and who we need to contact,” he says.

Enter Salon Fusion, and Ginger.

She wondered how she could help her friends in need, so she decided to sell $10 raffle tickets at Salon Fusion for a life-changing makeover that could help change Tristan’s life.

Proceeds from the tickets will all go to help Tristan’s family pay her growing medical bills.

“I just thought it would be a great way for us to give some sort of help, and give back to the community, especially since he’s not here to do actually do that,” Huff says.

“It really touches me that, ya know, especially because we are so far away from home in Oklahoma that people do care and people are willing to help us,” Tasha told 41NBC.

Salon Fusion’s slogan is “Feel the peace you seek.” This is a chance for Ginger to put her salon’s slogan into action, helping her friends in Oklahoma city “feel the peace they seek” through the kindness of strangers.

If you buy a raffle ticket from Salon Fusion, you could win the works: hair color, cut, facial, makeover, and a professional photo shoot session. It’s just $10. The contest ends on August 24th, and the winner will be chosen the next day. To find out how you can get in on this contest and help little Tristan and her family, click here.