By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
Dakota Denomie is 13 and old enough to understand that if he doesn’t receive a liver transplant soon, he will die.
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| Dakota Denomie, 13, contracted hepatitis C, which damaged his liver. |
"His health is deteriorating at a pretty rapid rate right now," said his mother, Cyndi Denomie. "He’s just a sick, little boy."
Dakota contracted hepatitis C a couple of years ago, and the virus has damaged his liver. The Pearl City youth has advanced cirrhosis and has been on a transplant waiting list for nearly two years.
He and his mother eventually will have to move to Palo Alto, Calif., to be near Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, where the transplant will be performed. Hospital officials have told Cyndi Denomie that the sooner they move, the sooner Dakota will move up the priority list.
Because of her son’s failing health, Denomie hopes to make the move in the next two months.
 Anyone interested in donating can send a check to: Dakota Denomie Medical Fund, Central Pacific Bank, Makiki Branch, 818 Ke‘eaumoku St., Honolulu, HI 96814. Donations also may be dropped off at any Central Pacific Bank branch. |
"When I say February or March time frame I just don’t think he’s going to make it much longer," she said.
But Denomie is a single mother of two children and she can’t afford the cost of the move. She works full-time at Raynor Pacific Overhead Doors and lives with her parents, Arthur and Norma Baxter, in Pearl City.
"We’re going to need living expenses because when you’re on a waiting list you don’t know how long it’s going to be. There’s no set time on the waiting list," said Denomie. She added that she has no idea how much money she will need.
"Everything is so unsure right now. All we know is it’s inevitable and we’ll be going up there and that it’s getting closer," she said.
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