Givealittle.<\/a> <\/p>\nHugo was accepted and underwent the Car-T therapy clinical trial in January. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, the treatment didn\u2019t work for Hugo,\u201d Aaron said. <\/p>\n
![\"Hugo]()
Hugo Donaldson was diagnosed at age nine with Stage 4 Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma. <\/p>\n
He said they came back to New Zealand in March and found out his cancer had \u201cquite a bit of progression\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d been quite hopeful because he was really good in himself at that point … even though we knew there was a high chance it wouldn\u2019t work,\u201d Samantha said. <\/p>\n
Over the past few months, Hugo continued to undergo targeted treatment. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe still had a lot of hope that there was something we could do that would work. We were still pushing,\u201d Samantha said. <\/p>\n
His parents said their family managed to go on holiday on the Gold Coast and spend some time at the theme parks. After this, combined with the seven weeks in the States, they said Hugo was looking forward to coming home and hanging out with friends. <\/p>\n
![\"Hugo]()
Hugo Donaldson was diagnosed at age nine with Stage 4 Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma. <\/p>\n
Aaron and Samantha said things progressed \u201cquickly and unexpectedly\u201d in Hugo\u2019s final days. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe had been out to a friend\u2019s birthday party on Saturday night, and then on Sunday was sort of complaining about a little bit of back pain,\u201d Aaron said. <\/p>\n
He said the pain started to worsen the next day and began to impact his breathing. Aaron said they later took him to the hospital, where he was struggling to get enough oxygen.<\/p>\n
Before his death, Hugo spent some time in the oncology ward before he was moved into the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The family of a 12-year-old boy who died after a courageous fight with a rare and aggressive childhood cancer say they are experiencing \u201cimmeasurable sadness\u201d.<\/p>\n
Aaron said Hugo\u2019s younger brother Louis, 10, probably didn\u2019t understand the full extent of Hugo\u2019s sickness until about 12 hours before he died. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to say, look, he\u2019s not likely …to make it. Louis during that period, was probably one of the strongest people in the room,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Hugo\u2019s funeral on Thursday had 400 people attend and another 600 people online. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got an amazing family, but we\u2019ve got an unbelievable community who have lifted us up right through this and still do,\u201d Aaron said. <\/p>\n
Aaron said they had a cardboard casket so his friends could write messages and draw pictures on it, and everyone who attended went home with a piece of Lego in Hugo\u2019s memory. <\/p>\n
![\"Hugo]()
Hugo Donaldson was diagnosed at age 9 with Stage 4 Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma. <\/p>\n
Aaron said Hugo never considered himself brave for going through what he was going through because he didn\u2019t have a choice. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just saw so much courage and bravery in how he responded to it … he really did try really hard to make the most and enjoy himself,\u201d Aaron said.<\/p>\n
Hugo\u2019s parents said they wanted to acknowledge the support from the Starship and oncology team and to advocate for making clinical trials more accessible in New Zealand. <\/p>\n
Aaron said removing the barrier of having to raise a significant amount of money, or having to travel for potentially life-saving treatment would make a world of difference for many families. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hugo Donaldson was diagnosed at age nine with Stage 4 Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma. His parents said Hugo was an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13502,74,42772,28822,2534,6184,36088,6179,87910,23285,2109,15124,174736,173898,2190,111,43,139,69,3766,2744,8205,37450,8229,61,20838,102],"class_list":["post-452066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-12yearold","tag-after","tag-aggressive","tag-beautiful","tag-cancer","tag-childhood","tag-courageous","tag-died","tag-donaldson","tag-experiencing","tag-family","tag-fight","tag-hugo","tag-immeasurable","tag-long","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parents","tag-pay","tag-rare","tag-sadness","tag-they","tag-to","tag-tribute","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}