Emelyn’s fight against Leukemia

Aloha family, friends and others we may meet on this journey. We are reaching out and making this heartfelt plea as a family on behalf of our amazing sister, wife, mom and daughter, Emelyn Kamakeeaina, to help raise funds for a Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) that could potentially save her life. For those of you who know Emelyn, she is cheerful, loving, unbelievably strong and always puts her family and friends before herself. She is not one to ask others for help so we took it upon ourselves to start this go fund me campaign.

In early April of this year, Emelyn wasn’t feeling well and took a visit to urgent care. Doctors weren’t able to help her there, so she was referred to Hilo hospital for further evaluation. After many blood tests later, the emergency room doctor told her it was cancer. The dreaded “C” word. We can still hear Emelyn saying how she felt the world stopped when they gave her the news. With no emotion, this straight-faced doctor just dropped this bomb on her. Still so strong, she worried about everyone else, she worried about her kids and she worried about all things that come to your mind when you receive heart wrenching news.  She immediately started blood transfusions and was transported by medivac to Kaiser Hospital on Oahu. They then confirmed her diagnosis, Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia is an aggressive blood cancer which will require lengthy and costly treatments. She has already undergone two rounds of chemotherapy at the Kaiser hospital in Oahu. While in Oahu, her siblings were on the Big Island getting tested to see if any of them were a match to become a donor. With the grace of God, we were blessed with not one but TWO siblings who ended up being a perfect match. We were then given only two weeks to make preparations for Emelyn and her donor to travel to California to start the Bone Marrow Transplant process.  Although this was exciting news for us all, Emelyn worried about how this would affect everyone else’s lives. Still thinking and putting others before herself. 

Now it’s time for us to send back some of that love and support to Emelyn. We are humbly asking for any donations, prayers, and support that we can get. This treatment will be ongoing with a minimum 6 months that will require her husband, Makai, to be out of work with no source of income. All donations will help pay for medical expenses, cost of living, and any travel expenses that may occur along the way. We understand times are hard for everyone right now, and if you’re unable to donate, please we ask for as many prayers as possible for Emelyn. Every prayer and every penny will count. She is the rock of our family, and we can’t imagine this life without her. She’s a fighter and an inspiration to us all. Her fight is our fight, and we will beat this with the love and support from everyone. Please spread the word and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.