8-year-old Hoover boy Lucas Dunigan finishes battle with leukemia
An 8-year-old Hoover boy who was one of two children to light the city of Hoover’s official Christmas tree in December lost his battle with leukemia on Monday night but won freedom from a 2½-year struggle with cancer.
Lucas Dunigan, a second-grader from Rocky Ridge Elementary School, died Monday at 5:50 p.m., according to his mother, Amy Dunigan.
Lucas was first diagnosed with leukemia in December 2014 and went through aggressive chemotherapy, a failed bone marrow transplant and more than 100 nights at Children’s of Alabama hospital before going into remission around the end of February 2016, his parents said.
Doctors found a drug that kept the cancer cells from replicating, but Lucas relapsed early this year after 10 months of remission, his father, Michael Dunigan, said. He went back in the hospital for more treatments, but they were unsuccessful. Lucas was released to go home on hospice early this month.
“He was just so incredibly strong through the entire thing. Toward the end, he just wouldn’t give up,” his father said. “To go through everything he went through, I could not have done it. There was no quit in him. He was all in …. He was just such an amazing kid.”
His mother said in a Facebook post that she would never want anyone to have to go through cancer with their child.
“It was the absolute hardest thing I have ever watched and had to be a caregiver for in my entire life,” she said. “I am completely broken.”
Michael Dunigan said it’s hard to put into words how he feels.
“When you lose a parent, you’re an orphan. When you lose a wife, you’re a widower. When you lose a husband, you’re a widow, but when you lose a child, there’s just no word for it, and that’s the truth. That’s just the complete truth.”
When Lucas finally breathed his last, his father said a sense of calmness and release just came over him. He was happy Lucas would not have to endure it anymore, he said.
“We’re the ones that have to live with his loss,” Michael Dunigan said. “He’s the one that gets to gain everything.”
In his eight years on Earth, Lucas touched so many people’s lives in so many ways, he said. He just hopes Lucas’ story helps motivate other people to be better parents and understand that their children’s lives are so easy to take for granted.
“When you lose a parent, you lose your past, but when you lose a child, you lose your future,” he said. “That’s our legacy.”
Visitation with Lucas' family will be at Southern Heritage Funeral Home in Pelham from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 13, with a funeral following at 3 p.m.
This article was updated at 9:42 a.m. on May 10 to correct information about the type of transplant Lucas had -- a bone marrow transplant -- and at 1:24 p.m. with information about funeral arrangements.