Vicki (Daida) Eto, a 1975 Kaua‘i High School graduate, and Chapi Akana, 24, of Hanapepe, are both asking Kauaians to help them find a way to lead longer, fuller lives. Eto and Akana both have forms of leukemia, and their
Vicki (Daida) Eto, a 1975 Kaua‘i High School graduate, and Chapi Akana, 24, of Hanapepe, are both asking Kauaians to help them find a way to lead longer, fuller lives.
Eto and Akana both have forms of leukemia, and their remaining hope for any kind of extended life expectancy lies in finding willing and suitable bone-marrow donors.
Their chances of surviving rest with linking up with a matching donor.
The Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry at the St. Francis Medical Center on O‘ahu has scheduled a registration for potential donors at the Wal-Mart store in Lihu‘e from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on this Sunday, Feb. 8.
To become a volunteer marrow donor, people must be between 18 and 60 years old and in good heath.
They will have blood collected by a finger-stick method, and people will be asked to donate not knowing whom they may match.
Hawaii Bone Marrow representatives also said the test will be done at no cost to the donor.
According to a Web site on bone-marrow transplants, thousands of Asian and Pacific Islander patients are diagnosed with diseases that can be treated with a marrow transplant.
However, 70 percent of the patients don’t find matches among their family members, and need an unrelated person willing to donate marrow.
Marrow is the soft, vascular, fatty tissue that fills the cavities of most bones. Marrow is removed with a surgical needle via the back of a pelvic bone.
Eto was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome last September. Because of the disease, her body can’t produce enough red blood cells and platelets.
When a body doesn’t have a sufficient number of red blood cells, a person becomes anemic. Because her body doesn’t produce enough platelets, Eto also bruises easily.
“I was tiring easily last year, and thought I was out of shape,” Eto said before her September diagnosis.
Eto, 46, can still chauffeur her two children to their school and social activities, but she said she “sometimes tires easily, and I find myself going to bed before 10 p.m.”
“My life hasn’t really changed, except I get more sleep,” Eto said.
She said she has a “pre-leukemia” condition, but noted that her prognosis for life “is for 3 and a half years if I don’t get the marrow transplant.”
Eto said she hopes the Feb. 8 registry will produce a matching donor, but even if it doesn’t, that is OK with her as long as the registry process can help someone, whether that person be from Hawai‘i or from abroad.
“If we help just one person, we helped save a life,” she said. “I would be happy for that person.”
Still, she hopes to find a successful match one day so that she can continue with her life on Maui.
Eto, who is of Japanese descent, lived in Lawa‘i until she turned 18 years of age, and moved to Maui. She lives in Wailuku, and is a tumor registrar at the Maui Memorial Medical Center.
Chapi Akana of Hanapepe, who is of Hawaiian, Chinese and Caucasian descent, graduated from Waimea High School in the late 1990s.
Akana was diagnosed with acute lyphoblastic leukemia in November, 2001, and his medical treatment has been arduous since then, according to Debbie Nakamura of Wailua, a close friend.
Akana underwent chemotherapy treatment at Queen’s Medical Center on O‘ahu, and returned home to ‘Ele‘ele in 2002.
To combat his disease, he took medication at home that kept the leukemia in remission, Nakamura said.
But Akana had a relapse in August 2003, and has been undergoing treatment at Queen’s Medical Center since, Nakamura said. His spirits are raised whenever he makes it back to Kaua‘i for periodic visits and sees his family, Nakamura said.
“They (doctors) have depleted the conventional chemotherapy his body can take,” meaning that additional chemotherapy treatments may lead to heart and kidney failure, Nakamura said.
So, Akana is now being put through experimental chemotherapy treatment, using different doses of combinations of chemicals, to try to stem the disease, Nakamura said.
“The doctors are trying to keep the disease repressed, and hopefully we will find a bone marrow match for him,” Nakamura said.
With a successful match, Akana may return to the healthy lifestyle he once had, Nakamura said. “He loved to surf and swim. He was employed by the Beach House Restaurant (in Po‘ipu),” she said.
“This (his disease) took everybody by surprise when he became ill. He didn’t even look sick when he was diagnosed,” she said.
Staff Writer Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net.
