Wrapped in Care: Shaun’s Hospice Story
Those are the words of Shaun Lemberg. He’s just 34 years old.
He and his wife Isla have two little boys, aged four and two. A young family, in the thick of life, raising children, building a future. The kind of life that feels like it’s only just getting started.
Then, in April 2024, Shaun found a lump in his chest.
“I thought it was an infection or something that would settle down,” he says. But it didn’t.
What followed was months of tests, biopsies, and uncertainty. “We were just being constantly told by specialists, ‘It’s not that… and it’s not this,’” Isla recalls. “We were left thinking, what are we actually dealing with?”
Eventually, they got their answer. The lump was an incredibly rare and aggressive cancer called follicular dendritic cell sarcoma.
From there, everything moved quickly. Chemotherapy. Radiation. And the reality that Shaun would lose his arm. “It was a big adjustment,” Shaun says. “But we’ve got young kids, so I had to keep going.”
And he did. Then, when the treatment worked and the tumour shrank enough for surgery, they allowed themselves to believe they might have more time. But the cancer had other plans.
Not long after his surgery, scans showed it had spread. First to his lungs. Then, devastatingly, to his heart. They were told there was nothing more that could be done.
The terminal diagnosis wasn’t a shock as they had been prepared for that possibility from early on, “but we just hoped for more time,” Isla says quietly.
More time with their boys. More time as a family. More time for all the ordinary moments that suddenly meant everything. So they made a choice.
When we were told there was nothing else to be done, we decided to focus on living life,” Shaun says. “We started focusing on making memories,” Isla adds.
They travelled overseas for the first time. Visited wildlife and theme parks. Made memories they will hold onto forever.
Even in the face of everything, they chose to keep living.
As Shaun’s health got worse, he became critically unwell with an infection, and with the cancer in his heart, his body was exhausted.
That’s when Waipuna Hospice stepped in.
“I’d always thought of hospice as purely end-of-life care, like a hospital for people who are dying.”
But what they found was something far more human.
“Hospice really looks after you, both what you need and importantly, what you want, while you’re in your final days,” Shaun says.
Not just the illness. The whole person. And not just Shaun, but their entire family.
“Waipuna Hospice doesn’t just look after Shaun, they look after me too,” Isla says. “You walk in and the nurses call out and say hello. You feel deeply cared for as well.”
This is what hospice care really is. A circle of care and compassion.
A circle that wraps around not just the patient, but everyone who loves them, like a cloak, holding them through the hardest moments of their lives.
Inside that circle, something remarkable happens. The noise and stress fall away, and families are given the space to simply be together. To talk, to rest, to hold onto the moments that matter most.
“When Shaun got the chance to go to a Chiefs Rugby game, no one told him he was too sick. Instead, everyone worked together to make it happen,” Isla says.
“His medications were carefully planned. Oxygen arranged. They thought of everything. They all wanted to help make it possible. We got back after midnight, and the nurse was there waiting for us, ready to help Shaun into bed and get him comfortable.”
Moments like these don’t happen by accident. They happen because of a circle of care which enables hospice to make space for living, right until the very end. And it’s not just the big moments, it’s the small ones, too.
The boys playing in the playroom when they visit. Friends and family welcomed with warmth. Family meals in the shared kitchen. A fold-away bed so Isla can stay the night, right beside him.
“They make everyone feel welcome,” Isla says. “That’s not something you get everywhere. You also feel so supported, which means you can focus on being together as a family.”
For Shaun, the hardest part isn’t physical. It’s what he’s leaving behind.
“Leaving the kids and Isla behind, that’s the hardest thing for me,” he says, his voice breaking. “When I married Isla, I took on a responsibility. When we had our boys, I took on those responsibilities too. And now I’m not going to be able to fulfil them. I know our vows say, ‘till death do us part’, but I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave them all behind.”
In the middle of everything he’s facing, Shaun keeps coming back to something simple.
“If I was to give advice to someone facing this,” he says, “it would be to keep faith, love yourself and love the people around you.
This Hospice Awareness Week, we’re reminded again that hospice care is a circle. A circle of care that surrounds families like Shaun and Isla’s with compassion, dignity, and support.
But it’s a fragile circle, because hospice care doesn’t exist without community support. Without you, that circle begins to break.
Right now, demand for hospice care is growing, and the reality is, we cannot do this without you. We rely on the generosity of our community to keep showing up for families in their most difficult moments.
Without your support, families like this would be left to carry it all alone. Trying to manage complex care at home without the support they need, or spending precious final days in busy hospital wards.
“I would hate to consider a world without hospice care,” Shaun says. “It would put so much extra stress on families like ours and everything would feel harder.”
“There’d be more anxiety, more pressure at home, and the kids would feel that too. Plus, I would likely be in hospital which isn’t what I want. Hospice is completely different. Their care takes that weight off so you can focus on being together and living life. I genuinely think people live longer because of hospice care.”
Right now, you can help ensure that circle of care doesn’t break by donating.
There is no time to wait. Please donate today. Because every family deserves to be held in that circle, and no one should face this alone.
We want to say a huge thank you to Shaun and Isla for sharing their story with us, and to everyone who continues to support Waipuna Hospice.
Your donations make it possible for us to care for people like Shaun and Isla.