Kahalau's Treatment

Kahalau went from being a happy go lucky healthy child about to embark her journey in Hawaiian Immersion Preschool to being sick with a tummy ache and ataxia- hard time walking and keeping balanced. When she no longer wanted to walk or stand we knew something serious was happening.

We had a cat scan of her brain done on Maui to reveal nothing abnormal; were sent on the AMR medical airplane to have an MRI of brain to triple check; then a Spinal Tap to check for infections and those came back normal. We then had a Cat scan of her stomach and MRI of spine to see if anything was lurking there to cause these most unusual symptoms.

That is when we found a large mass in her stomach. A biopsy was performed on Monday July 3rd at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu revealing on 7-11-17 she has Stage 3 High Risk Neuroblastoma - a pediatric cancer of the nerve cells. She qualified for a clinical trial and Will go through 18 months of treatment. Thankfully the cancer is isolated to her abdomen and has not infected her bone marrow.

She finished 6 rounds of inpatient chemotherapy in 5 months, a major surgery to resect what was left at Seattle Children’s Hospital, Stem Cell transplant, 30 days of IV sedated radiation, and 6 rounds of immunotherapy! After 18 months of hospitalization and treatment Kahalau is in the maintenance phase of treatment. She is stable disease but not in remission. There is an inch of tumor left that didn’t go away after all that treatment so we monitor it with labs every few months and scans once a year. She has had a tumultuous journey and continues to recover from the toxicity that treatments brought.

We will keep you updated as we start this journey as an 'ohana.