Yavanna and Lar are eager to talk about their first large-scale fundraising event, Oscar’s Kids PJ Party, which will be held simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic on November 5. On this side of the Atlantic, the focus will be on providing comfort and joy to the lives of children currently navigating a cancer diagnosis. The charity has identified a research laboratory at the Stanford University School of Medicine that specialises in DIPG and initial funds raised will be donated to this lab.Īctress Melissa Rauch heads up the US branch of the charity. In the States, the charity’s mission is to raise funds to support cutting-edge research to help fuel groundbreaking treatments for the rare form of cancer Oscar had. The couples decided to join together, as friends and as parents, and Oscar’s Kids was born. “In the very early days of Oscars passing when we were literally just in the pitch dark on the floor with grief. “One day she said, ‘Listen, my husband Winston and I have been talking, and we want to start a childhood cancer charity in America, and we want to do it in Oscar's name,” Yav recalls. In the final weeks of Oscar’s life, the actress was in touch with him on a daily basis, his parents say, sending messages and videos and being the “finest girlfriend” anyone could ask for.Īfter Oscar passed away, Melissa, who is herself a parent to two children under five, stayed in touch with Yav and Lar. “From that moment on, she was a best friend to him.” Oscar with some of the gifts The Big Bang Theory actress Melissa Rauch sent over “She got the full cast to send across a video for him and sent him over toys and treats. “The very next morning, she replied to us. Yavanna and Lar contacted the actress online one night hoping they might swing an autograph and make Oscar’s day. “He just fell in love with her and one day declared ‘Bernadette is my girlfriend.’ That was it,” she laughs. “We all used to watch The Big Bang Theoryat home, and Oscar really loved the character Bernadette,” Yavanna says. Picture: Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images Melissa Rauch as Bernadette and Kaley Cuoco as Penny in The Big Bang Theory. Melissa, as it turns out, was Oscar’s ‘girlfriend’. Oscar’s Kids, which was launched last month as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, will have two strands - an Irish strand, headed up by his parents, and a US part, headed up by The Big Bang Theory star Melissa Rauch and her husband Winston Beigel. Oscar’s life and the impact he had on those who knew him have inspired a new national childhood cancer charity. In July 2019, Oscar passed away just two months after his fifth birthday. And for the next 19 months, that is exactly what they did. In the hours and weeks that followed, the couple says they came to an unspoken agreement of how life had to be led from now on - day to day, and with as much joy and love as possible packed into every moment. Oscar Keogh was diagnosed with DIPG at three and a half and died shortly after his fifth birthday He was just expecting his mam and dad to come back in and look after him.” “Oscar was waiting for us with no idea what was happening. Their whole world had crumbled in an instant, Yavanna says, but there was no time or space to process it. "But in the same breath to be told he has stage-four cancer and he won't get better? To be told you have no options to fight it. “It is the most shocking thing to be told your child has cancer,” Yavanna says. The average expectancy of a child with DIPG is nine months. Yavanna and Lar were told that if their son did well with treatments, he would live for two years at most. Oscar had been diagnosed with a Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) tumor, for which there is no effective treatment and no chance of survival. “The next day we got the news,” Yavanna says. An MRI was scheduled for the following morning to confirm what the consultant was sure he had seen - a tumour. The hospital performed a CT scan initially which showed a mass on Oscar’s brainstem. When the family arrived at Temple Street the following day, everything happened at “speed,” Lar says.Īt the time, this seemed like a good thing, the primary school teacher recounts. Yavanna, Oscar and Lar Keogh were a happy, carefree family prior to his diagnosis “That was the last day of our lives as we knew it,” Yavanna recalls. They brought Oscar to the family GP who advised them to go to Temple Street to “rule out the big things” and work from there. But when Oscar began to have recurrent vomiting episodes, his parents knew something wasn’t right.
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