St. Francis Medical Center-Liliha presents a special holiday presentation as part of their free monthly educational lectures for the community. Island musician, Sean Tiwanak will be sharing a special message of hope, music and humor as he shares his personal experience in overcoming the devastating effects of his battle with congestive heart failure. The event will be held at St Francis Medical Center, 2230 Liliha Street, in the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Medical Pavilion, 5th floor conference room, on Tuesday, November 28th from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. Cost: FREE. Parking: $3.75. Light refreshments will be served. Seating is limited, so RSVP is recommended. Call 547-6410.Similar to Barbary Hershey's character, Hillary Essex, portrayed in the movie "Beaches", Sean was diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy 20 months ago at age 37, while living and working in Reno, Nevada with his wife Maile. The muscle tissue of Sean's heart was severely damaged by a virus after suffering what seemed to be a common flu that lasted for several weeks. When he was finally taken to the emergency room, diagnostic tests indicated that his heart's ejection fraction had reached nearly fatal levels at only 12 to 15 percent. With an ejection fraction that low, medical workers at the hospital thought it was miraculous he was even able to stand at the time.
Sean moved back home to Hawaii in October of 2005 to be closer to his family and to recover from the physical, emotional and financial challenges of living through a devastating and life-altering disease. Over the past year and a half, Sean lost 50 pounds at the direction of his cardiologists, and has regained a portion of his heart function, although he remains on high doses of cardiac medications, and adheres to very stringent lifestyle and diet regimens.
Sean credits his past experience working with heart failure patients at the Queen's Medical Center and Castle Medical Center, where he worked as a Registered Respiratory Therapist between 1992 and 1996, in giving him the knowledge needed to make effective and long-lasting life changes. After 1996, Sean moved to the mainland where he worked for pharmaceutical companies Merck & Co. and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in their cardiology sales divisions specializing in the latest treatments for heart failure patients.
Over the past 18 months, Sean has poured his creative energy into producing his second full-length CD, "HOME TO ME" featuring original songs "Angel", "Aloha Uhane", "Lokelani", as well as the title song "Home to Me". Sean has been performing for audiences since age 13 and has been producing recorded music since 1999.