Luka's Journal

17/07/2024

Luka’s funeral will be on Monday 22nd July, 10.30am at the Distinction Hotel & Villas at 64 Lakefront Drive, Te Anau.

Our family welcomes all those who wish to celebrate our beautiful boy.

Messages can be sent to 10 Red Deer Place, Te Anau.

Katelyn & Toby pass on their thanks and appreciation to the immense support of the Te Anau Medical Centre & Southland Paediatrics team, in particular Bernie & Deborah for their kind, human and professional palliative care of Luka.

17/07/2024

Last night, in both of our arms and beside Oakley, our beautiful & strong boy Luka passed away.

Luka was brave until his last moment, did not suffer at all in his final few days and fell asleep peacefully listening to dad singing twinkle little star.

Go now, pain free, to the arms of our angels waiting for you. They will look after you until we see you again one day. Mummy & Daddy ###

09/07/2024

“How lucky are we to have somebody that makes saying goodbye so hard”
Winnie the Pooh

Over the last few days Luka has deteriorated significantly. We are treasuring these last special days, together as a Family.

🖤 Thank you for the support.

06/06/2024

We’ve walked countless laps around the Christchurch CHOC ward, each time passing the large giraffe and the golden bell.

Some of the worst days the bell was one thing that kept us going, just imagining the day Luka would be all finished treatment and have his turn at ringing it.

We of course always imagined it would be when we were leaving with our healthy, cancer free boy. Heartbreakingly this wasn’t meant to be.

Today Luka rings the golden bell and it will be the last time Luka leaves CHOC ward. So although it’s not the happy completion we dreamed of, it still brings us so much bittersweet joy. It is a very emotional symbol that we are now into the next phase of Lukas journey.

To have seen what Luka has gone through in this hospital, and to still have our smiley, cheeky, caring Luka makes us so proud.

It also means that we are going to be home, back to his family, friends, dogs. Back to his town that he loves exploring, the lake he will still go boating on, and most importantly the place he calls home.

It means Luka will be able to spend the rest of his life at home.

Katelyn

26/05/2024

It has been a very challenging 48 hours. Friday morning Lukas femur bone broke from tumor growth and a small fall. After a big journey to Southland Hospital and a very rough pain experience, he was finally pretty stable at midnight and had a good sleep till Saturday morning.

He had several procedures done to get him stable enough to LifeFlight to Christchurch including a Femoral Nerve Blocker catheter, never done on an under-18 child in Invercargill and made a huge difference to his pain so a big thanks to the Southland hospital team. He will now have more work done on his leg and a full disease review to talk about options for the road ahead.

Luka has deteriorated quite quickly over the past week, it is a very hard part of the journey we are heading into now and all we can do and ask is to remember how strong Luka is and how happy he is with mum, dad and Oakley at his side each day.

15/05/2024

A lot can change in just a few days.

After celebrating a year since Luka’s relapse and him beating all the odds to be here right now, we were brought back down to earth with news from Oncology that the cancer has broken through Luka’s trial drug.

We have also noticed small changes in him. We are told a few good months left.

Good moments are hard to truly enjoy as they pull at your heart strings, knowing what will eventually be missed.

Luka will soon hopefully have palliative radiation to reduce pain in his legs. We are incredibly proud of how strong our little guy is 💙

06/05/2024

This last month marks two years since Luka was diagnosed and started his cancer treatment.

It also marks one year since Luka was told treatment hadn’t worked and he had relapsed with several large tumors growing back already.

At this point we were told there was very few options and even shorter amount of time left with Luka (2-3months).

We were told it would be unlikely he could reach his 3rd birthday in November, and then Christmas, and then the big one was meeting his baby sister in January. Each timeframe we were given Luka has blown past without a second thought.

As parents we’ve had to get comfortable with living in the lurch and somehow block out the fact that our worlds can be turned upside down any week (we try to anyway!).

Instead we are just trying to make the most of every day and seeing our amazing boy growing up.

He’s become such a kind, caring, social boy and the best big brother to Oakley. He makes us so proud everyday. ❤️

Cheers to pushing the boundaries and to making plans even when you’re afraid they might not happen. 🥂🥹

Katelyn.

25/01/2024

Nine months ago, just five days after learning of Luka’s relapse we found out another peice of news.

Today, a day we were told would be very unlikely, came true. Luka became a very proud brother this morning to Oakley Linda-Ruth Pascoe, born 9:06am at home, 8lb 6oz and so far a real sleeper, feeder and snuggler.

Luka deserves this moment as much as his beautiful and absolute champ Mum! We are a very happy family of four 😁

11/01/2024

💙

24/12/2023