REDLANDS — The hope is that Ke’ala Thomas makes a full recovery.

The 6-year-old’s mother Candace and step-father Josh are optimistic that the worst is over.

But the ordeal of Ke’ala’s liver transplant surgery may linger for the Redlands family.

The exact cause of Ke’ala’s liver failure is not clear yet. Her condition resembled a bad cold in early December when she was diagnosed with mononucleosis.

Ke’ala then began to experience symptoms of jaundice.

Ke’ala was sick for Christmas, and, after more labwork was completed, doctors discovered Ke’ala had a high sugar count and needed to return to the hospital.

Later that day, Dec. 30, Ke’ala was diagnosed with liver failure.

“I pretty much collapsed into tears,” said Candace Thomas, 25. “It was overwhelming. It all happened so fast. there was no time to think. I thought I could lose my daughter. will she die in my arms?”

Then doctors determined that Ke’ala needed to be transported to Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. Candace and Ke’ala were put in a helicopter and flew there.

Three days later Ke’ala underwent a 10-hour liver transplant surgery.

“It started at 4 p.m., and we didn’t get to see her again until about midnight,” Candace said. “I couldn’t handle it. you have to be prepared for the worst.”

Candace and Josh did their best to explain it to Ke’ala.

“I don’t know if she ever fully wrapped her mind around how bad it was,” Josh said. “It’s tough to explain to a 6-year-old.”

Ke’ala remains at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. She had a rough time the day after surgery but she is recovering.

“She is very responsive,” Candace said. “She has her spunky attitude, if not more.”

On Monday Candace went to Smiley Elementary School where Ke’ala attends first grade, to arrange homework assignments.

“Her teacher was devastated,” Candace said. “We don’t want her to fall behind in school. If she is feeling good enough to do artwork, we feel she can do homework too.”

The surgery itself cost in excess of $230,000 and the family will need to meet costs that have come with the experience, including missed work and gasoline from commuting to Los Angeles.

The Thomases have been using the accommodations of the Ronald McDonald House.

Fund-raising efforts have begun and the family has started a blog starsforkeala.wordpress.com and Facebook page called starsforkeala.

“The cost was something I couldn’t even think of,” Josh said. “It was like it wasn’t real. It was like I was running from it.”

Reach Ed via email, or call him at 909-793-3221

A former CIA security officer is alleging that the agency is unjustifiably invoking a "state secrets" claim to cover up evidence that he and his family suffered illnesses as a result of exposure to environmental contamination at an agency facility.

Kevin Shipp, 55, a counterterrorism consultant now employed by a firm with government contracts, said that the agency also has sought to prevent him from publicizing his ordeal by heavily redacting the manuscript he hopes to publish. the book describes what the family experienced during and after their exposure: illness, alcoholism, marital discord, and a campaign of harassment and surveillance that Shipp says was carried out by the CIA.

‘Suffered horribly’

The facility where the Shipps lived is in the southwestern United States and has served as a weapons depot and disposal site. the Washington Post has agreed to the agency’s request not to name the facility or describe its location more precisely.

In interviews, Shipp said he was motivated to speak out, possibly in violation of a judge’s orders not to discuss the case, because he believes the CIA is hiding misdeeds. In 2003 the government agreed to pay $400,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Shipp, but the CIA later backed out of the deal.

In February 2004 U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia granted the agency’s request to dismiss the matter as a state secret, a decision that effectively made permanent a gag order he had imposed two years earlier.

"This is about the Constitution and their grave violation of it," said Shipp, who won several commendations for his work over a 17-year career. "we suffered horribly. People need to know what they did."

The CIA declined to discuss the case. "Separate and apart from any specific instance," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said by e-mail, "the CIA takes the health and welfare of its employees very seriously."

A family physician said the Shipps were harmed.

"the family greatly suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, acute situational adjustment reaction and insomnia relating to their experiences in the past," Steve W. von Elten of Warrenton wrote in a 2003 evaluation. "They had not exhibited these tendencies, from my experience, from first establishing [them] as patients in this practice in 1993."

Shipp and his wife, Lorena, and their two sons and a daughter moved to the secret facility in May 1999 for his agency assignment as a security officer.

Within several weeks of moving into their double-wide trailer, they say they began experiencing health problems, including bloody noses, rashes, nausea and abdominal pain. Lorena suffered from "bleeding gums . . . mysterious bruises all over my body . . . continual sinus infections" and headaches "so painful I could not get out of bed," she said in an interview.

Shipp discovered small spots of black and greenish mold hidden in the trailer’s nooks and crannies. he said he learned they were capable of generating toxins that produce some of the symptoms he was seeing in his family.

Where do I begin. I am writing this as a way to vent I guess. I am at a crossroads and do not know what to do. my dream for many years has been to be a Special Agent with the Secret Service. two years ago with my wife’s blessing I applied. She was very supportive. I would be away in training for 7 months. their training is very physically demanding. you have to be healthy and fit to make it through it. Also when I was working it would mean I would probably be traveling a lot. I was so excited. it ended up being a very long two year process. we were discouraged many times, because it was taking so long.

On New Years eve we finally sold our house. that had been a 3 year ordeal. we lost a lot of money on the house. we depleted our savings to get rid of it. we needed to get it sold so us moving to a different city would be easy and we would not have to live seperately until the house sold.

Over the summer I had a full and seemed like very intesive physical checkup as part of the hiring process. Everything was A OK. A little over a week ago I thought I was getting sick maybe a cold or the flu. I had bad diarrhea going 10 to 15 times a day. then there was blood in my stool. after three days and calling in sick I went the doctor. he gave me Cypro and said it was probably a bacterial infection. A few days later and it got worse. No pain no loss of appetite. I was staying hydrated. I just had to go suddenly so much. last Wednesday, I went back to the doctor. he called a GI doctor and scheduled an appointment for the next day to see him. he told me to go on a clear liquid diet temporarily.

That night I was sitting at home and the phone rings. the Secret Service called and said I was hired. I would be starting at the end of Febuary. WOW that would normally be so exciting, but I did not yet know what was wrong with me so I was excited but reserved. the next day I went to the GI doctor. he asked a ton of questions and did a small scope on me. he said I probably have ulcerative colitis but we need to do a colonscopy in a few weeks and some more blood work now to find out for sure. I am on Lialda right now and tonight will start a low residue diet.

So here I am. What to do? Today is the first day I have started to feel somewhat normal. but I am so freaking hungry I have lot 8 pounds because of this mostly liquid diet in less than a week. I have not worked out in over a week, which is a big problem. Right now I need to ramp up my workouts right now.

This could end up costing me this dream job. it is so unbelievable. so many different scenarios are going through my head. I know no matter what I have to tell them before I start. What if I quit my job, go to training and can’t continue because of a flare up. They let me go now I have no job and no insurance. Where I work now has a 100% iron clad policy of not hiring anyone back. I make good money here and have good insurance. it would not be the worst thing in the world to stay at my current job, but to not get this job after all this time and commitment would be crushing.

Gwyneth Paltrow has never tried to hide her experience with postpartum depression, but she recently opened up to Good Housekeeping with a brave honesty to bring more awareness to the disease. while her first pregnancy with daughter Apple was fine, it was after her son Moses was born in 2006 that she was hit hard by it. she said it was difficult to come to terms with just how different the two experiences were.

She credits her husband, Chris Martin, with spotting the signs and eventually convincing her to get help. she describes how about four months into her ordeal he kept telling her something was wrong, but she kept trying to convince him and herself that she was fine. she wasn’t.

“I felt like a zombie,” she said. “I couldn’t access my heart. I couldn’t access my emotions. I couldn’t connect.”

She said she didn’t know enough about the disease beforehand to know that she had symptoms of it.

“I thought postpartum depression meant you were sobbing every single day and incapable of looking after a child,” she explains. “But there are different shades of it and depths of it, which is why I think it’s so important for women to talk about it. it was a trying time. I felt like a failure.” ?

She echoes the feelings of so many women who have experienced the disease, and it’s great to see her talking about it so openly. All too often women feel shame over the disease and don’t want anyone to think they’re a horrible mother or that they can’t handle their children. seeing strong celebrities like Paltrow speaking out about her personal experiences is good for all women and part of one of the most important steps to identifying and treating postpartum depression — awareness.

Have you experienced postpartum depression? Did you experience feelings similar to those Paltrow describes?