Honoring Baby Ricka Joy's Brave Fight

Aloha,

My name is John Rick Bumanglag, the brother of our beloved Ricka Joy Bumanglag, who sadly passed away on February 21, 2025. With a heavy heart, I am humbly asking for any contributions to help alleviate on the financial expenses for her funeral services and her final resting place to help my parents, Roderick and Precious Joy Bumanglag, and myself properly grieve during this deeply sorrowful time.

To tell you a bit more about our little angel’s life, at just 9 months old, our baby Ricka Joy has been a strong, bright, joyous little soul. She survived being in the NICU for roughly 6 months. She endured, suffered, and went through unimaginable pain at such a young age, yet she never failed to radiate with a smile. She was prematurely born at 36 weeks old, with her several months of life followed with laryngomalacia, congenital a/p supragloroplasy, nasal airway obstructions, silent aspirations, genetic disorders with uniparental disomy of chromosome 5, hypoxia, anemia, electrocardiogram abnormalities, gastroesophageal reflux disease with esophagitis, respiratory insufficiency, urinary tract infection, pulmonary hypertension, thrombophlebitis of her right saphenous vein, neonatal sepsis, hypothermia, patent ductus arteriosus, persistent pulmonary hypertension, and even underwent multiple surgeries to address her difficulty feeding that resulted in a gastrojejunal tube where she was robbed of the joy of feeding by bottle, instead directly through her stomach all her life.

Needless to say, our poor little girl is a fighter and did everything in her power to live a life on this Earth, but God had other plans.

During the majority of our 6 month stay in the NICU, my parents remained unemployed to fully tend to my baby sister’s needs and comfort. My mom and dad lived in a hospital room all that time, with just a singular reclining chair and a regular chair for them to sleep on. While I spent most nights in the hospital lobby sleeping on chairs as well desperately begging security to not kick me out until I was kindly offered a room at a Ronald McDonald Charity Home. I witnessed my parents deliberately sacrifice themselves day in day out to care for my little sister, they put her needs above anything else and made sure they provided a happy life for our Ricka Joy. Once she was finally discharged from Kapiolani Medical Center, my dad remained unemployed to provide 24/7 care to my little sister, barely making ends meet. My parents are hard working good people and losing their little girl has completely shattered their world.

I had also just started college this January in hopes of pursuing my dreams in Medicine. Given such financial constraints set onto my parents and their current limited income source, providing them peace and ease of mind with the payments of our baby’s funeral service and burial plans. Hopefully with such kind help from our family, friends, and community, we are we are able to offset the stress of such financial worry to help us all accept and fully grieve our tragic loss. Thank you everyone. ❤️