Māmā of the Month: Hayley Borges
This month we are honored to share the story of Hayley Borges, a māmā from the beautiful island of Kauaʻi and the mother of this year's Kapiʻolani Children's Miracle Network Champion, Seeley, who was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia with a KMT2a rearrangement / mutation when she was just 2.5 weeks old.
Hayley and her husband Shawn are raising two remarkable daughters, Ainsley and Seeley. Their family’s journey has been shaped by resilience, love, and the strength of a little girl who has already overcome so much in her young life.
Hayley shared more about their journey, the long road their family has walked, and the spirit that Seeley brings to their lives every day.
Read more from Hayley below.
Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your family — and of course, about Seeley?
"My name is Hayley Borges, I am from the beautiful island of Kauaʻi, and in addition to my regular job I am the chaos coordinator for my husband Shawn and our two amazing daughters, Ainsley Jude & Seeley John. Shawn is what I like to think of as the mortar to the bricks I lay or sometimes.. throw. He fills all the space he can with love, support and solidifies our foundation. Ainsley, at 11 is a fierce athlete, social butterfly and naturally easy going in nature. Seeley, at just 4, runs the household right along side me. She is intentional, quick witted, determined and a born fighter. She was born defiant, proving it by becoming an unfair participant in the war against cancer at just 2 1/2 weeks old."
As you've gone through this journey with Seeley, what has helped you keep moving forward when things felt uncertain or overwhelming?
"Going through Seeley's battle with cancer was filled with endless moments of uncertainty, and the feeling of being overwhelmed was constant. The most powerful driving force against the negative emotions was my intense motherly instinct to reunite my two girls and put the two pieces of my heart back together. After Seeley was medevaced from Kauai to Kapiʻolani, it would be two months before our girls got to see each other again for just one week. We were then readmitted to the hospital for another two months before being reunited for just one week as we relocated to Seattle for further treatment and a bone marrow transplant at Seattle Children's from then it would be an impossible 147 heartbreaking before we saw Ainsley again as she returned to Kauai to continue first grade under the care of my sister and we were 3000 miles away in the thick of Seeley's toughest battle yet."
Seeley is this year's Children’s Miracle Network Champion — what does that honor mean to you as a mom?
"Seeley being this year's children's miracle network champion feels like a dream I spent hours manifesting as I watched her fight for a chance of life. For her journey to be a beacon and inspiration to other keiki and families fighting feels like the fearful, heartbreaking and difficult start of her life has a purpose."
Kapiʻolani has been part of your story. What would you want other families to know about the care and community there?
"Kapiʻolani Hospital is our second home. Not just because we lived there for months on end, but because it was there that the amazing and dedicated staff not only detected and diagnosed a rare and aggressive blood cancer in one of the youngest patients known, but they saved her life. Administering previously unknown rounds of chemo and determining her line of care, put her in remission so that she could travel to Seattle for her life-saving transplant. There is so much to say about Kapiʻolani, but the most important thing is that we never felt like just a patient there or a number. The feeling of love and ʻohana is unmatched even in the thick of covid isolation protocols we felt surrounded and cared for by family at every level."
What is something about Seeley that makes you smile every day?
"Seeley makes me smile, bust laugh, bite my tongue and roll my eyes every day. Her quickness understanding and levels of conversations appear mismatched with her teeny tiny stature. If she gets a hold of your iPhone, she will send a minimum of seven audio messages and 3 to 5 Memoji messages. She can't read yet but can and will decipher a contact list and send the right message to the right person. She loves her pet cats, and it's truly an Ace Ventura type of Crusader for all animals except worms. She will say absolutely not to anything related to worms. She loves art, especially drawing and painting, and has become quite famous for her happy faces it is a must see!"
If you could speak to another mom walking through something similar right now, what would you tell her?
"If I could speak to another mother in a similar situation, I would first say it is not your fault. There is nothing you or your partner did or didn't do or could have done. Some children are meant to change more than our hearts they are made to change the world. Keiki are resilient, brave, strong, and made up all the best parts of you. They will teach you and guide you through all hard things and you are there to love, and advocate for them, while fighting along side them. Never underestimate the power of love, aloha and ʻohana."
