Tiny baby Kendrick receiving cuddles from his mum, Kaitlynne Lion, not long after his birth.
Tiny baby Kendrick receiving cuddles from his mum, Kaitlynne Lion, not long after his birth.
While baby Kendrick lay in intensive care fighting to grow his lungs, his mum sat in a hospital bed finding out that she, too, was in for the fight of her life.
The last thing Kaitlynne Lion expected after her son entered the world early and needed to be hooked up to a ventilation machine was to find out just six weeks later that cancer was ravaging her body.
The past few months were supposed to be some of the happiest times of Lion and her husband Kayden Pillay’s life after their third round of IVF was successful.
The Hawke’s Bay couple were supposed to welcome their baby into the world on Wednesday, however, Lion’s waters broke at just 23 weeks in February - the same week Cyclone Gabrielle battered the region, leaving them without power or phone service.
Kaitlynne Lion and Kayden Pillay with their son Kendrick, who is in NICU at Wellington Regional Hospital.
With no idea what state the roads were in, Pillay packed Lion into the car and rushed her to Hawke’s Bay Hospital. Doctors told them the baby was barely viable and Lion needed be airlifted to Wellington Regional Hospital immediately for monitoring.
Kendrick was born three weeks later on March 10 as a micropreemie baby, weighing just 820g and with an array of complications including underdeveloped lungs and omphalocele - a condition where an infant’s organs stick outside of the body through the belly button.
Pillay said he and Lion got to lay eyes on him for only a few seconds before doctors hurried him away to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
“[We felt] really scared and excited at the same time,” said Pillay.
“When we saw him he was really bruised, he was blue and it just broke our hearts to see him like that.”
Baby Kendrick a few weeks after his birth.
A month and a half later, just days after one of Kendrick’s surgeries, Lion woke up with abnormal bleeding.
An ultrasound discovered large cysts on her ovaries and surgery to remove them a month later revealed a nightmare she and Pillay never expected.
“That’s when they broke the news to us, they said ‘we went in to remove your cysts but we found cancer on both ovaries and on the tissue’,” said Pillay.
“Our stomachs dropped.
“It was heartbreaking. Now we have to deal with our little boy in NICU and mum with ovarian cancer.”
Lion underwent a hysterectomy, despite the couple’s hopes to one day have more children.
“We had to come to the decision to remove everything to give her the best chance and so that Kendrick has his mum as well,” said Pillay.
“We’re just hoping that they managed to remove all the cancer.”
Lion is now under monitoring and will need tests and scans every few months to check for any abnormalities, but doctors were confident they had got it all.
At first, Pillay was able to work at his employer’s Wellington branch while Kendrick was in hospital, but has had to stop since Lion’s cancer diagnosis.
“I have to take care of Mum and baby, we don’t have another option at the moment.”
Kendrick with his dad, Kayden Pillay.
The couple have been living at Ronald McDonald house across from the hospital during treatments.
Pillay said they had no family in New Zealand, having relocated from South Africa five years ago for work.
“My work has been very supportive . . . they’ve really been our family away from home. They’ve helped us in any ways that they could. They came together as a team to help us out with baby clothes, vouchers for groceries and leave.
“They’ve been really compassionate about the situation.”
Pillay’s employer has now set up a Givealittle page for the couple, to help cover their living costs.
The family hope they will be able to return to their home in Hawke's Bay soon.
Pillay hopes that within the next month they can be transferred to Hawke’s Bay Hospital so they can all be closer to home.
He was grateful to the Wellington Regional Hospital staff and his workplace for all they had done for the little family, and for the strength their faith had given them so far.
Kendrick is doing well, now weighing 3.9kg with doctors focusing on his breathing and feeding, while Lion works on her recovery.
