Admittedly, Sean Keoni Craig was not a well man when he and a group of friends set out for Los Angeles in September to celebrate his 52nd birthday at the happiest place on Earth.
Three years earlier the Kailua resident was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive disease of unknown origin that leads to irreversible scarring of the lungs. There is no cure for the disease, and without a transplant patients typically have between two to five years to live following diagnosis.
Nonetheless, Craig had done surprisingly well. He was able to keep working as a flight attendant for Hawaiian Airlines, swapping mainland and international routes for interisland flights to avoid the highest travel altitudes. Friends even set up a GoFundMe account to purchase him a portable oxygen device, which he used during periods of higher-than-normal exertion. He continued to enjoy his life, and the trip to Disneyland was to be yet another expression of that.
But on the evening before they were to convene at the gates of the park, Craig’s oxygen levels dipped precipitously.
“My energy was gone and I could hardly walk,” he recalled.
Good friend Ryan Sanico rushed Craig to the emergency room at the University of California-Irvine Medical Center, where Craig’s condition continued to deteriorate. At one point Craig went into cardiac arrest, and twice flatlined.
“My family flew over to be with me and were told that there was nothing to do except make me comfortable,” Craig said. “But Ryan and my family said, ‘No way!’”
Craig’s pulmonologist in Hawaii worked with doctors at UCI in reaching out to experts at the University of California, Los Angeles, who in turn dispatched a medical team to perform emergency surgery right there in Craig’s hospital room at UCI.
Craig was hooked up to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine that allowed for his blood to be oxygenated outside his body, bypassing his heart and lungs, and moved to UCLA, where it was also determined that he was in need of double-lung and kidney transplants.
As Craig regained his strength and worked to improve his overall health to be eligible for the transplants, his expansive network of friends and family did what they could to lend their support, including hosting a pair of fundraisers to help cover his mounting medical bills.
“I’ve always been a very positive person, and I’ve always surrounded myself with positive people,” Craig said. “At home I got prayers from family, friends, friends of friends — it was incredible.”
On Oct. 26 Craig got the call that a set of lungs and a kidney had become available. After a rapid round of tests, evaluations and screening, Craig was wheeled off to the operating room where he underwent six hours of surgery to replace his scarred lungs and, after a two-hour break, another six hours of kidney transplant surgery.
“The next day I was already coherent,” Craig recalled. “They had me up and walking.”
Craig was discharged less than two weeks later but remains in California as he recovers, staying at a North Hollywood home owned by his niece Lindsey McCallum, who commutes back and forth from Nevada to take care of him. Sanico, a fellow flight attendant, also stops in regularly to help out.
If all goes well, Craig will be able to return to Hawaii sometime next month. He hopes to return to work as soon as he is able. Until then his co-workers at Hawaiian already have donated enough of their own vacation days to cover him for up to a year of recovery.
“They say it takes a village,” he said. “My villagers have really come through for me.”
Craig said he thinks constantly about the person whose lungs and kidneys saved his life and about the family that person left behind. He is also deeply grateful to the medical professionals who cared for him. It’s in recognition of all these individuals that Craig has devoted himself to educating the public about his disease and uplifting and inspiring those who may be experiencing some of the same things he did.
“Every day that I can get up and take a deep breath, I know it’s a great day.”
And as for that missed birthday trip to Disneyland?
Craig and his friends are enjoying an extra-special belated celebration there today.
Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.
