Girl, 4, Finds Wishes Do Come True

Kalana Calkins had three wishes when she moved to Irvine more than a year ago.

First, the 3-year-old wanted the heart and lung transplant that would save her life. Then she wanted to swim with the dolphins in Hawaii. But most of all, she wanted to go home to Kansas.

Doctors at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles granted her first wish in March. The second wish came courtesy of the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Orange County last week. And at 6 a.m. today, she will get into her family’s car and begin the long drive to Kansas.

Make-a-Wish made sure Kalana, now 4, left in style. The foundation threw her a gala “Wizard of Oz” party Wednesday night where her adopted family of nurses, doctor and friends could say a bittersweet goodby.

Kalana and her parents, Roger and Peggy Calkins, arrived in Irvine in May, 1993, after Childrens Hospital agreed to attempt a transplant. They had searched through friends and family in their native Lakin, Kan. (population 2,300), to find a place to stay while they waited for a donor. Through a nephew, they found Mary and James Young in Irvine.

Peggy Calkins has been living there with Kalana and her son, Cody, 7, since then. Her husband had to return to Lakin long before the donor was found.

Calkins lived with a beeper on her hip for 10 months until the call came at 6:45 a.m. in March. They were at the hospital by 9 and the operation was over by late afternoon.

Kalana was off her respirator by the next day, her mother recalled. “The first thing she said was, ‘Isn’t this great? Now I have a heart and lungs and we can go home to Kansas.’ ”

Her extended relatives in Kansas have not seen Kalana for more than a year, and Peggy Calkins said the plump little girl who walked down a painted yellow brick road at the Make-a-Wish party bears little resemblance to the skinny, dying girl who left Kansas attached to an oxygen pump. “They’ll be shocked,” Calkins said.

“It’s almost like a fairy tale,” said Pierre Wong, Kalana’s cardiologist. “This is really what you strive for--to give a child a new life.”

Kalana was the hospital’s youngest transplant patient, and Wong said she “flew” through post-operative courses.

The patient was feeling well enough to go visit the dolphins three months after surgery. Make-a-Wish sent the family to Hawaii for a week and provided Kalana with a special “dry suit.”

On Wednesday, Kalana wore a blue gingham dress--her Dorothy costume--to her party, complete with red shoes.