Joy as Lucy Laws' chemo treatment finishes

Photo: Kevin Stent

Happy days: Two years after being diagnosed with leukaemia, Lucy is full of the joys of autumn with her family in Whanganui.

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Regular doses of chemotherapy are finally off the menu for five-year-old Lucy Laws, who yesterday celebrated in style the end of her cancer treatment.

Lucy, the daughter of Whanganui mayor Michael Laws and Leonie Brookhammer, was diagnosed with leukaemia two years ago. The odds were stacked against her but, after six weeks in Auckland's Starship Children's Hospital, she fought back. Since then she has been undergoing chemotherapy treatment at home, and enduring monthly stays at Whanganui Hospital and three-monthly visits to Starship for further treatment.

But on Friday she had her final dose of chemotherapy. She is now officially in remission and off treatment, although doctors will continue to monitor her health closely for at least five years.

Last night Lucy's parents took her out for dinner at their favourite family restaurant where they toasted her with champagne and Lucy was treated to a fizzy drink and her favourite meal of fish'n'chips and a chocolate sundae. Around Lucy's neck sat her newly restrung beads of courage – about 500 of them, each representing a procedure or milestone in her cancer treatment.

Lucy's parents also marked their daughter's medical milestone by giving her a puppy, which Lucy has named Uno.

"She's been through so much and she is the bravest person I've ever met in my life, and I'm so proud of her," Brookhammer told the Sunday Star-Times.

While delighted Lucy's treatment is over – and that finally her daughter will be able to sleep through the night after months of disrupted sleep because of her medication – Brookhammer admits she is nervous about the future.

"It will be three to six years before we know Lucy has the all-clear so you can't help but worry."

For now, the family is concentrating on giving Lucy as normal a life as possible and say they will always be indebted to those who prayed for and supported her in her battle against cancer.

"I don't know how we would have got through it if it wasn't for the support of complete strangers, people who we are never likely to meet, who just went out of their way to make things better for a little girl who was very sick," says Brookhammer. "I will never forget that, ever."

- © Fairfax NZ News