Lucas Duquette

Hi! I’m Lucas’ mom. Lucas was born with a spotlight on him and a microphone in his hand. He lights up every room he enters and brings a smile to everyone’s face. He loves glitter, rainbows, and unicorns.

But on August 1st, 2023, Lucas’ light began to dim. He developed a fever and started experiencing excruciating back and leg pain every time he lay down. His laughter and smiles were replaced with frowns and tears. It was heartbreaking. My husband JF, our older son Alex, and I were terrified. The boys would often ask if Lucas was going to be okay. We always said yes, but in truth, we were clinging to hope.

For four long months, our nights were sleepless and filled with painful cries. We endured countless discouraging doctor’s visits—always reassured it was not cancer—along with dozens of blood tests, x-rays, ultrasounds, an MRI, CT scan, PET scan, and even two misdiagnoses.

Finally, on December 11th, we received the devastating news: it was cancer. On December 27th, Lucas was officially diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. That day, we unwillingly joined a community no family ever wants to belong to—the Leukemia and Lymphoma community. Those two weeks between suspicion and diagnosis were the longest, most painful of our lives.

Lucas began chemotherapy on January 8th and completed it on April 11th, 2024. At first, I feared the treatment would extinguish his bright light forever. But to everyone’s surprise, Lucas filled the Oncology/Hematology ward at the Montreal Children’s Hospital with his contagious smile and laughter. Even while hooked up to machines, he danced, cracked jokes, played games, and high-fived every person who entered his room.

At just five years old, he had to carry the heavy burden of a life-threatening illness: living with uncertainty, enduring constant disruptions, attracting unwanted attention, and facing the painful side effects of a life-saving but toxic treatment. It wasn’t always smooth sailing. Yet in the face of it all, Lucas showed a courage that surpassed even the bravest fictional superheroes.

As a family, we also had to learn—one day at a time—what cancer truly does. It doesn’t just attack the patient’s body. It shatters every family member’s emotional well-being, drains finances, pulls you away from work, and strains relationships. And its impact doesn’t end with remission—it lingers long after a child is declared cancer-free.

The good news is that leukemia and lymphoma are the most common childhood cancers, and they come with relatively high survival rates. Lucas’s treatment gave him a 90% chance of surviving five years, which sounds very promising—unless you are the parent of the child in that other 10%. Ten percent feels terrifyingly high when childhood cancer itself makes up less than 1% of new cancer diagnoses in Canada. And yet, my Lucas is one of them.

Still, Lucas is one of the lucky ones. Many families we met on the ward would give anything for his odds. Some children face much longer treatments, harsher protocols, or additional interventions like radiation, immunotherapy, transplants, or transfusions.

I made a vow: if and when Lucas becomes cancer-free, I will use our story and my voice to advocate—for every child, every family, for childhood cancer awareness, for lymphoma research, and for the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Others paved the way before me, and I am deeply grateful to them. Now, it is my turn to carry that torch.

My efforts do not end with Lucas’s story. I will not stop advocating until there is a cure for cancer.

I can’t wait for you to see Lucas in all his glory—he’s truly one of a kind.

Sincerely,

Tania Antonopoulos