Our Warrior, Naki boy, fighting DIPG (brain tumor)

Steven Funaki Theron Iongi “Naki” is a
beautiful soul. He is almost 13 years old! He
has always been a vivacious, loving child that
loves sports and playing with his brothers,
sisters, cousins and friends!  He loves to hang out with his best friend Bubbi and cousin TameHe loves rugby, football and basketball
his favorite color is light blue and BYU blue
(navy blue).
Naki also loves to dance and loves music.

Naki is a lovely child and never gives his
parents problems - he always helps with his
siblings to make sure they behave. He has 16
siblings who adore him.

In August of 2018,  Naki started to complain
of a headache, his mom told him to rest and
take tylenol, but by the third day he was still
complaining and she noticed her son's face did not look right- half of his face looked droopy. His Dad took him into the hospital to get
checked while his mom was at work. The Drs
told them they needed to go Primary Childrens Hospital and see the Drs there.
That's where they received the news of their
sons rare but terminal cancer called DIPG. The Drs cried telling them the news so they knew
it was pretty bad as their world turned upside down.
Naki was diagnosed with Diffuse intrinsic
pontine gliomas (DIPG) which are brain
tumors found at the base of the brain and
highly aggressive and difficult to treat -

Initially Naki was given a few months to live,
but he has been such a brave warrior through many treatments and continues to fight for his parents and family. We continue to hope for
our Warrior Naki to recover but his symptoms have started worsening over the last few
months.

Naki is now battling the last stages of DIPG.
He has lost vision in his left eye and his right
eye is blurry. He is paralysed in his left arm and he cannot walk so he uses a wheel chair. His
speech is slurred, and struggles to swallow
and digest food.

His family continues to surround him in his
fight and Naki has so much courage- his
example helps us all find faith in our trials.

We are asking to help the family with costs they are facing during this battle. They want to
get a place for Naki to stay and live out
comfortably the rest of his days, he will need
hospice care soon- they have many bills piling up and they will be needing money to help
with funeral expenses as well. We appreciate
any donation possible and ask you to please
share this so we can get as much help as we
can for the family in this trying time.