Premature baby beats odds, blossoms into gifted woman

In the hours and days following the birth of her child, Luana Yee received a most unusually somber procession of callers.

"People kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry,’" she recalls. "They gave their condolences."

Yee understood the sentiment. Her daughter was born three months premature and weighed just 1 pound, 10 ounces. She was so underdeveloped that she had not even formed a complete skull to shield her tiny brain.

So, yes, Yee understood the expressions of sympathy. But she didn’t have to like them.

"I got so angry," Yee says. "I thought, ‘Why are you sorry? I’m a new mother!’"

Hours before the child’s birth, Yee’s sister, on Hawaii island, had been approached by a local kupuna and told that the baby would be born soon. Yee’s sister knew that such a thing wasn’t likely, not so soon. Still, she listened as the elder told her that the child should be named "Keola­mau" — roughly translated as "perpetual flourishing."

The name proved both prescient and auspicious for a child with such a tenuous hold on life.

Despite extraordinarily long odds — odds expertly leveraged by the care of her physicians at Kapiolani Medical Center — Keola­mau survived her rocky start with no long-term ill effects. Problems with vision and lung development resolved over time. Her relatively petite stature — she stands just 5 feet tall — even proved an advantage as she developed into a gifted gymnast.

With her mother’s constant attention and support, Keola­mau excelled both intellectually and athletically. At just 9 months she could sing "You Are My Sunshine." By age 4 she was taking ballet. A couple of years later she started in gymnastics.

"My husband (Ian) went to work every day so that I could work with our daughter," Luana Yee says. "I wasn’t going to waste the miracle of her life."

Keolamau credits her parents with instilling in her a love of rigor and a comfort in committing herself to long-term development, qualities that helped her gain admittance to the elite University of Pennsylvania (brother Noa is a sophomore at Tufts) and enjoy a stellar collegiate gymnastics career that included two East Coast Athletic Conference championships.

"She’s a constant positive light," says Luana Yee. "If I could be like her, I’d be a better woman."

Now 22, Keolamau is getting set to graduate with a degree in brain-based biology. She’ll spend the next year researching neurodegeneration and aging as she prepares for medical school.

"Medicine appeals to me because it’s a selfless profession that allows you to serve other people, it requires hard work and dedication and it’s intellectually and academically stimulating," Keola­mau says. "God willing, it’ll be the right profession for me."

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.