Christian Adamski: Parents of boy, 8, praise Bear Cottage in Manly for their love and care
A young boy who loved the outdoors and nature was allowed to die outside in the beautiful gardens of a hospice, after succumbing to aggressive brain cancer.
Manly
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An eight-year-old boy who was given the shock diagnosis of incurable brain cancer in June died in the gardens of a Manly hospice with flowers in his hand.
Grieving mum Marta Adamski, 36, of Pemulwuy, in Western Sydney, said they called their son Christian their “little gardener” because he loved nature and being outdoors.
She said she would be forever grateful for the care her boy and the family received at Bear Cottage and the beautiful way he was allowed to die.
She said on the morning of his death on September 30, she and her husband Luke, 41, and daughter Naomi, 9, carried Christian on an airbed into the front garden of the hospice.
They picked flowers for him to hold and he died outside surrounded by his family.
“At the hospital we would not have been able to do that,” Mrs Adamski said.
“We will be forever grateful for what the staff at the hospice did for us.”
The family were also allowed to stay at the hospice for the next three days, so they could be near Christian who was laid out in a private room.
Mrs Adamski said Christian’s death, less than four months after he was diagnosed, has devastated the family.
She said what they had gone through was “unspeakable”.
She said Christian, who she described as “happy and cheeky”, also had a developmental delay which meant he was unable to talk.
They only realised something was wrong when he began vomiting in the mornings.
“Our local GP could not do much as everything was so focused around COVID at the time,” she said.
“As the vomiting got more intense, we decided to take him to hospital.”
She said an MRI found a growth at the back of his head and he had an operation to remove some of it, but within two weeks the cancer had spread to his spine.
“It was a very aggressive cancer,” Mrs Adamski said.
“We don’t know how long he had had it, or whether he was in pain before he was diagnosed, because he was unable to tell us.”
She said at first they wanted him to die at home, however, because of the pain they discovered he required medical support.
“At the hospital it would take a long time to get his medication changed, but at Bear Cottage there was always a doctor who could help quickly,” she said.
The hospice staff also helped create some wonderful memories.
When Christian and his mum celebrated their birthdays, which are just two days apart, they organised a photo shoot, took a mould of his fingerprint to be made into jewellery and put their painted handprints on a canvas, which now hangs on their wall at home.
Mrs Adamski said cancer was a terrible disease and in the last two weeks Christian lost so much weight he was just skin and bone.
“Despite everything, 99 per cent of the time he was happy,” she said.
“My husband and I call him our hero.
“He went through so much in his little life.
“He still found it in himself to laugh and smile despite the pain.
“Children can go through things like this with so much more grace than adults.”
The funeral will be at Hillsong near Baulkham Hills on October 8.
Mrs Adamski has asked family and friends to donate in Christian’s memory to Bear Cottage, rather than buy flowers.
So far more than $6600 has been raised.
To donate go to: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bear-cottage-manly