Alohilani is an energetic, beautiful, soft spoken little girl who loves to sing, draw, and play volleyball in her spare time. One afternoon while Alohi and her father were playing, he noticed a rather large lump on her outer right thigh. Initially we thought it was just a muscle spasm. The lump rapidly grew to the size of a large egg which physically deformed her limb. We immediately took her in to the doctors, where they preformed a biopsy and found that the unknown mass in Alohi’s leg was cancerous. On November 19th, 2013 at the age of 7, Alohilani was diagnosed with Blastic Plasmacytoid Dentritic Cell Leukemia. Previously known as the Natural Killer Cell Leukemia. An aggressive rare cancer to adults, and extremely rare in children.
    Her oncologist stated, she is the first child to be diagnosed and treated in the state of Hawaii. Their is little information known about this type of leukemia and no established treatment. A team of specialist, locally and nationally, formed, agreed and supported a treatment plan for Alohi. Doctors predicted that she had a 70% chance of reaching remission. Immediately, a Port-A-Cath was implanted in her upper chest and treatment was started. She began taking numerous types of pills, to intravenous chemotherapy and even multiple spinal taps. During the course of her treatment Alohi has also gone through multiple blood and platelet transfusions.
    At the young age of 8, Alohi had endured an immense amount of pain, experiencing many awful days of weakness, chills, high fever, nausea, vomiting and difficulty breathing. Thus making it impossible for her to attend school. However, she has had a few exceptional days of fun with friends and family which we cherish, but they seem to be so few and far between. Remission was achieved and gave everyone in our ohana a brief moment of relief. Unfortunately, on Thursday, August 13th, 2015, after 21 months of treatment, we took her in for a routine test and results revealed Alohilani had suffered a relapse. The leukemia had returned and traveled to her brain fluids causing her to have very painful headaches.
    The doctor’s let us know that if a new treatment plan wasn’t implemented soon, Alohi would pass away in just one month. A very tough decision was made to continue treatment for Alohi. The second round of treatment would require a much stronger dosage of chemo, and for the first time Alohilani would undergo radiation. This would all lead to a bone marrow transplant, with the hope of finding a donor match. This time around doctors predict a 30% chance of survival for Alohi. Alohilani, now 9 years old, understands and accepts her difficult situation. She keeps herself busy by reading, writing, and drawing. Alohi and her family humbly ask for your prayers and support through these challenging times. ALL funds gathered will help pay for her medical care and quality of life.
#TEAMALOHI
                                                                 Sincerely,
                                                      Alohilani and family