Kids and parents who enter Shriners Hospitals for Children for the first time are immediately drawn to a large, circular aquarium that sits in the center of the lobby. Brimming with colorful fish and coral, the tank invites visitors to enter and forget where they are for a moment.
Suspended overhead is a school of shimmering fish that undulate in a giant, mesmerizing mobile. With the back walls of the lobby covered with mosaic murals of marine life and sunshine pouring in through the surrounding windows, it’s like being in a big fishbowl instead of a hospital where scary things can happen.
The Makiki hospital decorated the ground floor around the theme “Under the Sea,” hoping it would help its orthopedic patients — kids 18 years old and younger — to forget their fears.
The artwork “makes you feel welcome,” said Skye Oyamot, who had surgery at Shriners when she was 14 to correct a spinal curvature (scoliosis). “It’s like a home more than a hospital; it’s not somewhere you have to be afraid.”
Now 21, she is the hospital’s patient ambassador and proudly wears the scar down the middle of her back from her 2010 operation.
“Coming to a hospital for a child can be a very scary thing, especially when there’s big machines, things you’ve never seen before, and people poking and prodding them,” said Shriners publicist Angela Keen. “Seeing something friendly is going to ease their and their families’ worries when they walk in the door.”
That’s why Shriners is asking children in Hawaii to help decorate a new state-of-the-art X-ray machine so it will be less intimidating to patients. The “Under the Sea” art contest runs through Feb. 21.
The hospital will use designs from the winning entries to wrap the panels of the walk-in EOS imaging system, which resembles a large phone booth. Over $2,000 in prizes will be awarded.
‘A GAME CHANGER’
Oyamot’s bubbly personality and beaming smile make her a natural spokeswoman for Shriners Hospitals for Children. She said decorating the new machine with children’s drawings is “another way to make kids, no matter what age you are, feel more welcome and safer.”
Even though she was a teenager when she underwent a series of X-rays, “it’s still not a fun experience,” she said.
Keen said the new imaging system, due to be in operation by summer, will use 85 percent less radiation than conventional X-ray machines, further lessening an already low exposure risk. The nonprofit hospital has been holding a donation campaign for the $1 million needed for the equipment, with half that amount raised so far.
The EOS system creates life-size, three-dimensional images, giving physicians a full view of the patient’s skeletal anatomy while in a weight-bearing posture.
John C. Keene, the hospital’s vice president of development, called the EOS imaging system “a game changer because no one else has it in the state.”
“It transcends everything everyone else has, and other patients from different hospitals and other islands from the entire Pacific will have access to this care,” he said.
LIVING THE ACTIVE LIFE
Oyamot has been a frequent user of the X-ray machines at Shriners, not only during her treatment for scoliosis but from injuries suffered while doing exciting things “I probably should not do.”
After her surgery, her friends persuaded her to try activities such as dirt biking — “I loved it! It was so fun!”— and hiking. She went all out and broke her collarbone in 2014 while dirt biking, and last year broke her tailbone in a hiking fall.
Oyamot said her mother, Elizabeth Kahakua, was nervous about some of her activities but is supportive of everything she wants to do: “As long as I’m safe and happy, so is she.”
Kahakua said she joined Shriners’ nursing staff two years ago because “we had such an amazing experience” with the doctors and others who cared for her daughter.
Oyamot used to be very self-conscious about her uneven shoulders and curved back, according to her mother. “It was almost an S,” she said. Kahakua thought Oyamot would be equally shy about the long scar on her back after surgery, “but she wore it very proudly because it was a symbol of what she went through.”
Her daughter talked openly about her surgery and rehabilitation to classmates at Mililani High School and has delivered talks before small groups, making her an ideal patient ambassador, Kahakua said.
Oyamot said she still has a curvature on the lower section of her spine but called it “minor.”
Now enrolled at Leeward Community College, she said she hasn’t chosen her major yet but “no matter what I go into, I know I want to work with kids.”
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“UNDER THE SEA” ART CONTEST
>> Open to Hawaii residents who will be age 18 or younger as of Feb. 21
>> Entries must be in color; artists may use any medium, but computer-generated art will not be accepted
>> Entry deadline: Feb. 21
>> Info: Call 941-4466, email MDHonolulu@shrinenet.org or visit 808ne.ws/artshriners and facebook.com/ShrinersHON
>> Note: Overall winner will receive $250 and artwork will be used in the design of Shriners’ new EOS imaging system; winner’s school will receive $1,000 from Friends of Shriners. Three age-group winners will each receive $100, with “People’s Choice” winner in each age group to receive $100. Five teachers statewide will receive $100 gift cards for school supplies.
