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Do Ho on the Mend
For Don Ho, the great luau in the sky can wait.
The legendary Hawaiian crooner, best known for his hit song "Tiny Bubbles," is recovering in a Bangkok hospital after successfully undergoing an experimental stem cell treatment to bolster the blood flow in his heart.
"I'm feeling much better and I'm so happy I came up here to do it," Ho, 75, said in a statement Friday. "I'm looking forward to coming home."
The entertainer bid aloha to the islands and headed for Thailand because the so-called VesCell adult stem cell therapy has not been approved in the U.S.
According to Dr, Amit Patel, Ho's American heart surgeon from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who flew in to supervise the procedure, the entertainer's recovery is going exceptionally well, so much so that it's possible he could resume performing his stage show in Waikiki before Christmas.
"Tell my fans to stay healthy," Ho added. "I'm ready to go another 50 years."
By the looks of a hospital photo released by his Honolulu publicist--which shows a shirtless Ho smiling in his trademark raspberry-tinted shades while holding a Hawaiian "shaka" sign (short for "hang loose")--he means it.
Ho reportedly suffers from a condition called cardiomyopathy in which the heart gradually fails to pump enough blood to the body. The problem doesn't result from blockages in the coronary arteries but from the degeneration of the organ during one's lifetime.
In the experimental treatment, doctors take stem cells from the patient's blood, culture them in a lab, then inject the cells into a weakened heart to regenerate diseased tissue and strengthen the muscle's function.
Ho began experiencing heart trouble last year after experiencing shortness of breath. He was diagnosed with an abnormal heart rhythm and released three days later. Per doctor's orders, he cut back on his five-nights-a-week performance schedule.
Cardiologists implanted a pacemaker several months ago, but suggested he seek out the stem cell therapy after concluding that traditional treatment would not help.
The musician reportedly plunked down $30,000 to be one of the first patients to undergo the procedure. His stem cells were sent to labs in Israel for harvesting.
Aside from his memorable 1966 ditty, "Tiny Bubbles," Ho starred in his own variety program, 1976's The Don Ho Show, and made numerous guest appearances on such classic TV shows as The Brady Bunch, Charlie's Angels, Sanford and Son and Fantasy Island.
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