Queen Kapi’olani’s Living Gift to Island Keiki
The toughest journey voyager Nainoa Thompson ever made was the one that began when his son was born with a life-threatening disorder. At 9 months, all’s well. Nainoa Thompson has been on many epic voyages in his life. But not one of them compares to the journey that he and his wife, KHON’s Kathy Muneno, have been on as they welcome their children into the world.
By Alice Keesing
E-mail this story | Print this page | Archive | RSS |
Del.icio.us
|
Nainoa Thompson has been on many epic voyages in his life. But not one of them compares to the journey that he and his wife, KHON’s Kathy Muneno, have been on as they welcome their children into the world. It’s a journey that has taken them from the bright joy of their twins’birth to the dark moment when they heard those fearful words, “Something’s wrong with your son.”
Babies Na’inoa and Puana arrived Nov. 22 at Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children. Kathy remembers both babies uttering their first cries as they were delivered. Nainoa caught all the happy moments on his camera. All was well.
But within 24 quick hours, there was a terrible jolt. Little Na’i was not feeding, and a nurse, suspecting a problem, called in the doctors. Nainoa and Kathy were stunned to learn that their son had a life-threatening problem. Even if surgery was successful, Na’i might need years in the hospital and would probably always struggle to gain weight.
“I’ve been through some rough stuff in my life, but I’ve never been more afraid than I was then,” Nainoa says.
Na’i underwent emergency surgery when he was just 32 hours old. Two more surgeries followed. Family and friends rallied around, and people from all over the world prayed for Na’i. And he pulled through. After three months in the neonatal intensive care unit, Kathy and Nainoa were able to put their son in a car seat for the very first time and take him home.
At 6 months, against all expectations, he started to gain weight. Now, at 9 months, he has outpaced his dainty sister in the weight-gain department. He’s got chubby cheeks, roly-poly legs and, oh my, what a smile. His surgeon, Dr.
|
Sidney Johnson, calls him the miracle baby.
Nainoa and Kathy are an intensely private couple. They thought long and hard about going on the cover of MidWeek with their children. Ultimately, they decided to share their story because of how they feel about the staff at Kapi’olani and what the hospital means to Hawaii and all children as it marks its 100th anniversary.
Nainoa is quite frank. His first impression of the hospital was its really bad parking lot. (It’s a notoriously tight space even if you don’t have a pregnant belly or a car seat.)
“Now I don’t complain about the parking lot anymore - although they do need a new one,” Nainoa says. “Now I see it as a place of compassion, a place of healing, where you can see, on a daily basis, the vision of hope.”
This story, they say, is not theirs, but one that belongs to all Hawaii’s children. In its 100 years, Kapi’olani has cared for more than 1 million children. As you read this story today, there are upward of 46 babies in the NICU at Kapi’olani. The battle that Na’i fought and won is being fought, day in and day out, by other young lives.
In the early 1900s, two out of every seven babies born in Hawaii died before their first birthday (which helps explain the tradition of baby luau). Today, Hawaii’s infant mortality is less than 1 percent. With nearly half of all babies on Oahu born at Kapi’olani, the hospital plays a vital role in providing the specialized care children need.
This is where families from around the Pacific find hope when their children are sick. Children with cancer have access to the same standard of care as they do at the big-name hospitals on the Mainland. And Kapi’olani provides a swath of services not available anywhere else in the state - let alone for 2,500 miles in any direction. This is where you find the only pediatric ER, the only pediatric heart program and round-the-clock pediatric specialists.
Walking the hallways, there is no doubt that this is a kid-centric place. There is the colorful playroom stacked with toys. There are the bright quilted butterflies that are hung over a patient’s bed to alert those around when a child is terminally ill. There are the beads of courage that oncology patients make into strings as they pass important milestones. And there is Tucker the dog, who brings his own special canine brand of healing to everyone.
|
“We’re really proud of the fact that this hospital is a world-class organization caring for Hawaii’s women and children,” says chief operating officer Martha Smith. She’s so concerned about the patient experience that she hands out her personal cell phone number to every family - all calls, satisfied or upset, are gratefully taken.
“This facility is a really special place, and we believe that keeping Hawaii’s children healthy is an important part of this community,” Smith says. “We benchmark ourselves both nationally and internationally against other children’s hospitals and ... the outcomes that we have here in many of our programs are just as good, if not better than, the really big-name children’s hospitals.”
Still, Kapi’olani’s staff is doing it in a facility that long ago lost its edge and ran out of space. The hospital was state-of-the-art when it was built in 1978. But it’s car-
Page 1 of 3 pages for this story 1 2 3 >
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
