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Local business owner beats coronavirus after 3 weeks in isolation

By Colleen Uechi 5 min read

Carolee Higashino has had one heck of a week.

She celebrated her birthday, welcomed another grandchild into the world and beat the coronavirus.

After testing negative for COVID-19 nearly three weeks after she was first diagnosed, Higashino came out of isolation and returned home to Waiehu on her birthday Monday.

"It's really weird, kind of like coming out of a coma," she said. "I haven't seen all the stuff that's going on."

Just about everything has changed in the past month under stay-at-home orders -- businesses are closed, schools are shuttered, streets are empty.

"This is the first time I've driven through Wailuku, and everything is shut down," said Higashino, who owns A White Orchid Wedding in Wailuku. "It's a little weird, I'm not going to lie."

When Higashino left Maui on March 5 to visit her daughter in nursing school in Nebraska, COVID-19 hadn't yet reached pandemic status, and they had plans to visit Chicago on her daughter's spring break. But after the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic on March 11, "everything just started falling apart."

Businesses and attractions began closing down. Essentially faced with quarantine, Higashino and her daughter cut their trip short. On her way back to Maui, Higashino got stuck in Las Vegas trying to change her flight, finally securing a trip back on Hawaiian Airlines on March 17, St. Patrick's Day.

State Department of Health officials later singled out that flight as the most likely place Higashino contracted the virus.

Higashino quarantined herself at home and started feeling symptoms, including a cough and "a really bad headache." On March 27, she went to the Kaiser clinic in Wailuku to get tested but was turned down. They diagnosed her with a sinus infection and sent her home with antibiotics.

"But I still didn't feel right about that," Higashino said. "On that Monday, the 30th . . . they were doing drive-thru testing at the stadium, and a friend said, 'You should do that.' I did go, and at that point I had no taste or smell at all. I told them I was traveling."

On April 2, a few days after taking the test at War Memorial, Higashino got a call -- she was positive. Not wanting to infect the rest of the home -- her husband, her son, her son's girlfriend and her 91-year-old mother-in-law -- Higashino relocated to the family's place in Makena.

"I kind of felt like you had the scarlet letter," she said. "No one wanted to go around me or talk to me, like they thought they were going to get it over the phone or something. I did learn being alone is a good thing. I came out good. I was lucky."

Higashino spent three weeks recovering, experiencing a fever, aches, a cough, fatigue and a lack of taste and smell. She FaceTimed with family members on Maui and the Mainland and took calls from the Department of Health twice a day to check in. Family and friends dropped off groceries outside.

"At one point, I very reluctantly wrote a Facebook post and got bombarded by people calling and asking questions," she said. "It was extremely overwhelming and a bit nerve-wracking. I had no advice for people, but I wanted to make sure people weren't scared."

After some time in isolation, Higashino tried to get retested at Kaiser and was turned away again because she didn't have enough of the symptoms. Early last week, she went to the emergency room at the hospital to get tested and finally found out on April 24 that she was negative.

"I feel like the numbers don't matter because people aren't getting tested," Higashino said. "Because there's probably people who have it and don't know."

While she's able to be back home, Higashino is taking precautions. Her daughter Kendall Oreta gave birth to a baby boy Wednesday, but she doesn't plan to see them until Mother's Day.

And, as if battling the coronavirus wasn't enough, Higashino also has been trying to keep her business afloat and her employees paid. As hotels and other venues started closing down in late March, people began postponing travel and large events.

"It was like business shut down in a day," Higashino said.

A White Orchid Wedding had 175 weddings on the books and was in the middle of its peak season. So far, they've had to cancel and postpone about 45. Higashino had to let her seven full-time employees go, shut down her office and warehouse and apply for a loan under the federal Paycheck Protection Program. While she was able to secure a loan, the amount she's getting to pay her employees is less than what they'd be receiving under unemployment, making it tough for her to retain them.

"It's hitting the wedding industry very hard," Higashino said. "We were on a great clip. This was probably going to be our best year ever."

Nevertheless, Higashino doesn't plan to quit. Next year is her 30th anniversary in the business, and she's set on reopening, though she's not sure how the industry will look once things resume. How will catering work, how will people be seated, will there be more elopements and smaller groups?

She expects weddings to get "bottlenecked" later in the year with many people trying to book or reschedule and others already planned.

Despite feeling the direct economic impacts of the shutdown, the Wailuku business owner said she doesn't feel Maui should rush to reopen yet.

"I don't want people to be scared, just be safe, just be conscientious of this and don't think it's going to stop overnight," she said. "Reopening's great, but we're not ready yet."

* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.

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