A LEGEND REMEMBERED

For almost a half-century, Hawaii's favorite son entertained both locals and tourists. From a local dive all the way to national TV and ultimately a fixture at Waikiki, Don Ho represented Hawaii like no other. Then his heart weakened and he was forced to stop doing the thing he loved best---entertaining his loyal fans. How long he would live was unknown, but perhaps "living" for him was being on that stage, and that life seemed to be over. But he had a cardiologist who knew more than most that end-stage heart failure need not be the end of the road---maybe so in 2003, but not in 2005!

I was fortunate to play a small role in getting Don Ho to Asia for his stem cell therapy, and then was a visitor during his hospitalization. It was wonderful to see him the day after his surgery, all smiles and most of all, alive with energy. Men twenty years younger have been kayoed by that surgery for a day or two, but he just laughed and joked.

  

His recovery was unusually rapid, especially for a 75-year-old, but his cardiologist wisely played it safe and kept him off the stage for seven weeks despite how good he felt. When he went back, according to his audience, you would never know he had been so ill.

Things kept going well for him. He married his lovely long-time producer and companion, Haumea Hebenstreit, nine months after his cell therapy. She is shown here with George Efaw of Spooner, Wisconsin, at a patients' dinner in Bangkok. George, according to the doctors, was surely one of the five sickest patients of the first 200 treated with VesCell™. If you read his story you will see that George's miracle happened, in part, because of Don Ho being in town the same time.

We had him back for 15 glorious months of standing ovations, the final cheer fading out on Thursday, just a day and a half before he left us for good. Though mixed with occasional health problems, he kept on going, doing what he and his fans loved best. Of course, he never forgot. Nothing says that better than this:

We are especially grateful for his 'going public' with his stem cell procedure, for that is how we learned of TheraVitae, and came to Thailand for Pat's procedure. We are grateful that we had the opportunity to thank him both personally and publicly, and to have been colleagues with him in the "Hawaii stem cell cohort."
-----Pat & Sharon, Hawaii

Thank you Don Ho. You were too modest to realize how many lives you have helped. It was great knowing you!

For the story of Don's stem cell treatment , click here.

Don Margolis
coo@theravitae.com
Founder, TheraVitae
Private Line (with voicemail):  1-215-764-6312
June, 2007