Christmas has been saved for the little girl at Sick Kids hospital whose much-anticipated trip home for the holidays was put in peril by a last-minute blood infection.

Thanks to a special arrangement with their doctors, Kaleigh Wright-Barton and her family are heading home to Nova Scotia after all.

“She was jumping up and down when we got the news, and screaming in the hospital,” Kaleigh’s mom, Echo Wright, told the Star Monday evening.

“It’s a Christmas miracle,” she said, “just in the nick of time.”

Kaleigh was originally cleared to travel for the holidays last week, but came down with a blood infection that forced her family to miss their flight home over the weekend. The 9-year-old has had two liver transplants because of a birth defect, and needs frequent nutritional supplements through an IV, which can sometimes cause infections in the blood.

In the past, such contaminations have forced Kaleigh to take intravenous antibiotics in hospital for two weeks, Wright said. This time, that would have meant Christmas at Sick Kids.

But then, on Monday, medical staff at the downtown hospital approved a plan to have Wright give Kaleigh the antibiotics herself. Now, with Porter Airlines promising to rebook the flight they missed at no extra cost, the family plans to fly home Wednesday morning — arriving just before Santa does.

“We realized the horrible timing of this,” explained Vicky Ng, medical director of the liver transplant program at Sick Kids.

“We’re being creative and we’re going to allow her to go back home with mom giving the antibiotics that we know she very capably can.”

Wright, 27, said she’s been Kaleigh’s caregiver since her daughter was born, and that she’s been trained to administer the antibiotics by staff at Sick Kids. Jewell Barton, Kaleigh’s father, agreed, adding that he’s holding most of his own excitement at bay until they land safely in Halifax on Christmas Eve.

“We’ve done this for nine years, so they were comfortable letting us go and do the antibiotics ourselves,” said Barton, emphasizing that he wants more people to sign up as organ donors to help people like his daughter.

“We’re really grateful and blessed,” he said.

Kaleigh was first admitted to Sick Kids when she was four months old, in July 2005. Surgeons removed portions of her intestines that were protruding from her body at birth — a condition called gastroschisis — and Kaleigh now receives the sustenance she needs through an IV attached to a vein in her heart in a process called total parenteral nutrition (TPN), Wright explained.

But this process can strain some organs, Wright said, which forced Kaleigh to get two liver transplants, the second one just 18 months ago.

This year, with Kaleigh’s health stable and her spirits high, everything was lined up for a trip to the Maritimes for Christmas, where Wright and Barton grew up and their friends and families still live. Because of Kaleigh’s health, the family — including Kaleigh’s 5-year-old brother J.J. — hasn’t been able to travel home for the holidays since 2011.

The plan is to spend Christmas with Wright’s family in Weymouth, N.S., and then join Barton’s kin for New Year’s in Digby. And Kaleigh, if she’s been good this year, might find something under the tree that will help her go tobogganing with her East Coast cousins.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“There will be lots of lobster, and we’re going to see if Santa can bring in a sleigh,” said Wright.

“We can’t wait ... We’re going to take the first flight out of the city.”

Read more about: