A Grandmother’s Recounting of Olivia Kehaunani Sullivan’s birth:

At 11:30 PM on August 31st, my husband and I received a call from our daughter, Haunani Sullivan. She was in labor, and the pain was so severe she was doubling over. It came on quite suddenly, and her water broke soon after the onset of pain. We rushed from Laie to Pupukea on the North Shore of Oahu, and when we got there, Haunani and Pancho (Kehau’s daddy) were in his truck with the engine running. I jumped from our truck to theirs, and Haunani’s father went into the house to stay with their other two sleeping children. Haunani was scheduled to deliver her baby at Castle Medical in Kailua, a town 50 miles away, but by the time we reached Pearl City, the pains were right on top of each other. Pancho took the Pearl City exit, and we went straight to the Pali Momi ER. Kehau was born 15 minutes after they wheeled Haunani in.

At that point, we thought things were great. Baby had been born, and we were safe. An ambulance was readied to transport Pancho, Kehau, and Haunani to Castle, but the placenta was refusing to be delivered. When we got to Castle, Haunani was rushed to the operating room, and we were told things could go very badly. It was horrible. During that time, the nurses were working on Kehau. Her color wasn’t good.

When Haunani got out of the OR, we were relieved. Things went well. The placenta was delivered, and the prognosis was excellent. Our daughter was going to be fine.

When they brought Haunani back to the room, the nurses took Kehau into the nursery for a standard newborn evaluation. The pediatrician came in and changed our lives forever. She said that she’d called for a Neonatal Cardiac team from Kapiolani to come and pick up Kehau. She explained the diagnosis as a congenital heart condition called the Tetralogy of Fallot, but said that the cardiologist at Kapiolani would explain further.

So Pancho rode in the ambulance to Kapiolani with Kehau, who was then IVed, and hooked up to an oxygen tent. Haunani had to remain at Castle because of her operation. They wouldn’t release her to go with her baby to the ICU.

At Kapiolani, the cardiologist delivered the bad news. Kehau would need to undergo heart surgery as soon as possible to save her life. It was scheduled for the next afternoon. At that time, they couldn’t tell us if it would work, but they did say that the condition was not uncommon. However, the severity level for Kehau was quite high. He also told us that our little baby would have at least 5 more operations throughout her life: each delicate, each life-threatening.

Haunani insisted on being released from Castle the next morning, and we rushed her to Kapiolani ICU. Kehau came out of the OR with a 4-inch incision that ran the length of her chest from just below her throat to an inch above her belly button. She was put on five different medications, including morphine. For the next five days, she lay there with tubes and monitors all over her body. There were times when buzzers went off and nurses rushed to change the medications because Kehau’s little life was drifting away, and each time that darling girl pulled through. After six days in the ICU, her incision looked good, and she was breast-feeding well. The doctors let Haunani and Pancho take her home. Kehau regularly sees a cardiologist, a pediatrician, and cardiac surgeon. Every month, she has to have an RSV shot to protect her from viral infections of the lung. The co-pay on that is $374.00. The true cost of the shot, before the insurance kicks in, is $2,000.00 each month.

So here we are. Another operation to open up her closed pulmonary artery and repair the hole between her right and left ventricles is scheduled for February in San Diego, and we are trying to raise funds to offset the medical expenses. The first operation costs over $150,000.00, and the second, third, fourth, and fifth operations promise to be much more costly. The co-pay that Pancho and Haunani have to come up with is 20% of the total cost. At $150,000.00 and up, per operation, their co-pay for each will be well over $30,000.00.