As Tracy Karanui-Golf lay on her hospital bed, she’d watch videos of her garden back home in the Far North.
“I think those sounds of home were so healing and magic for me.”
Tracy’s whānau sent her the videos as she fought for her life in Auckland Hospital.
“Physically, the hospital was treating my tinana, but it was Paul and my kids and my connection back to home that was helping, that was maintaining wairua, hinengaro.”
In September 2024, Tracy left her papakāinga in Kaimaumau, a small rural settlement 20 minutes north of Kaitāia.
She was on her way to Auckland alongside her husband, Paul, to have bariatric, or weight-loss, surgery.
“We were really excited, and I hadn’t told people. I hadn’t told my mum and dad, and I only told the kids a week before I went to Tāmaki.”
Tracy was 40 kilograms overweight and wanted to improve her health so she could enjoy the papakāinga she had built with her whānau.
“We had this whenua now, and I was like, well, I need to do something about this or I’m just not gonna be here to live until I’m 105 and watch the tōtara tree grow.”
Tracy decided to have the surgery in Aotearoa because she felt she was choosing the safest option.
She paid $27,000 to have the surgery, which included a five-year after-care package.
“People go overseas to have the surgery for a quarter of the price that I was gonna pay for it.”
“I wasn’t going to Turkey, so I thought I’m doing the best that I can to make sure that I’m going to be okay.“
She was tapping into KiwiSaver to pay for the surgery.
“It was some of Paul’s KiwiSaver, some of my KiwiSaver.”
“You know, what else could we have done with that money, instead of this?”
Tracy ended up having a gastric sleeve, a surgery that removes up to 85 percent of the stomach.
“I woke up and over the next 12 hours, I had more pain than I was expecting.”
When she was ready for discharge, Tracy said she was still experiencing pain but decided to make the four-hour drive home to the Far North.
However, the drive home would be excruciating for Tracy, and she had to stop overnight before continuing her journey.
Her surgeon prescribed her tramadol and anti-nausea medication to help. She said she was told to keep drinking liquids to stay dehydrated.
It was while driving that Tracy decided to have a piece of gum when she accidentally swallowed it.
Tracy suddenly developed an unbearable surge of pain.
“So I ring the surgeon, and I’m literally hollering in the background like ahh this is really painful. And I’m saying, I accidentally swallowed some gum, and the surgeon’s saying, shit, well, that’s why you’re in pain.”
“You need to go and get some Coca-Cola, and the Coca-Cola will help the gum to not be stuck.”
“I’m feeling so sick from drinking the Coke, like it was a hot mess”.
Tracy made it to the emergency room at Whangārei Hospital. By that time, she could no longer walk.
“Paul gets a wheelchair. He puts me in the wheelchair. I’d started vomiting, and I couldn’t stop”.
“When I finally got checked, they realised very quickly that I was very, very sick.”
Her doctor said they suspected Tracy had a leak.
“The worst thing that can happen,” Tracy said.
“A leak means where they’ve sewn up your stomach or where they have removed and reorganised your organs, the stitching has literally come apart”.
“And stuff that should be going into your new tummy or where kai will go now is actually just coming out into your abdomen.”
Tracey was rushed to emergency surgery at Auckland Hospital by ambulance. She would be there for the next three and a half months.
In late summer, Tracy was finally able to return home. Gourd, or hue, seeds Paul had planted before they left the papakainga were now fully grown.
“Coming home and walking through the mara for the first time and seeing just these hue everywhere.”
“All over the māra, hue, tiny, tiny ones and big giant ones, just everywhere, and they just felt special.”
Once back in her happy place in the māra, Tracy and Paul decided to get creative with their hue and make lamps.
Tracy helps to prepare the hue and develops the design.
“When you start getting into actually designing them and doing the drilling and that, play a bit of music and you get a bit of a flow and next minute it’s in the middle of the morning,” says Paul.
He has worked out a way to be able to use proper lightbulbs and get them electrically certified.
“With every one we do, there’s a lot of meaning, a lot of aroha. We love it.”
Each lamp has its own story.
“It’s less about the lamp, and more about the hue and her beauty and her whakapapa and her āhua and her wairua. They’re all women, by the way.”
They’re now selling their lamps through their business Taonga Hue.
“People have said they’re magic. I can feel her. It’s my safe space now. My area of solace.”
“It’s nice just to see your work go out there and see what people have to say about it, and all the compliments they get back from it, and the meanings that we design for them. Yeah, it’s an amazing feeling.”
By John Boynton of The Hui