Former Black Cap Luke Woodcock was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour after experiencing severe symptoms. Photo / Photosport
By Bridget Tunnicliffe of RNZ
Former Black Cap Luke Woodcock knew something was seriously wrong late last year when he had trouble catching a cricket ball.
The cricketer-turned-coach started experiencing symptoms in October. It started with chronic fatigue, then came the random vomiting and loss of appetite.
By December, his balance and co-ordination went awry, his vision became blurry, and he had a couple of bad falls.
And while doing some coaching at a college cricket tournament, he had trouble simply throwing and catching a ball.
“You’d think that I had never played cricket before,” Woodcock said.
After another trip to the GP, the 43-year-old was referred to a neurologist. Three MRI scans later, he received the news on January 21 that he had a large cancerous brain tumour.
Three weeks later, the father of two underwent urgent surgery to try to remove the tumour. The associated risks with the surgery were significant, including the prospect of having to learn to walk again but Woodcock came out of it well.
However, surgeons were only able to get 80% of the tumour out.
“The last 20%, I think it’s on the right side of my spine where the stem cells are leading back up to the brain, just where it was, unfortunately, they couldn’t operate on that and that was a risk of potentially being paralysed through the face, my talking, stuff around my throat.”
Despite feeling well post-surgery and exceeding doctors’ expectations with his rate of recovery, he was later told that the remaining 20% was an aggressive grade-four tumour.
“Unfortunately it’s terminal and getting told you’ve got 14 to 18 months to live was a bit of a shock ... that was obviously pretty tough,” Woodcock said.
“I’ve had some dark moments post then, I’ve been working through that, really enjoy the day time but night-time and sleeping was really difficult post hearing that.”
The next phase for Woodcock will be undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, which will not stop the tumour completely but can keep it at bay.
Woodcock and his partner Jacqui Incledon have been trying to navigate the New Zealand health system and explore all the treatment options available, including non-funded drugs. They are also investigating what treatment options might be available overseas, which are extremely expensive.
Incledon said it has taken a lot of time, energy and research.
“It really started in mid October last year – we had a total of 10 different doctors that we saw up until Christmas and four ED [emergency department] visits before we even got to an MRI [scan], which was frustrating,” Incledon said.
“Having to spend a lot of energy with unknowns as to what could possibly be the cause of Luke’s sickness, we’ve had everything from stomach ulcers, to gall stones, to long Covid. Never did we imagine cancer.
“We’re just putting everything at it, making sure that all our energy can go into prolonging things for Luke.”
Facing a three-month wait in the public system, the family elected to go private for Woodcock’s surgery.
Day-to-day life now for Woodcock is about making the most of this period when he is feeling good before his next phase of treatment.
“I get up early, I’ve got some rehab exercises, do a bit of meditation and some breathing that I do.
“Jacqui and I just get out for walks ... we find a local cafe and try and do some things with my kids and stuff that I enjoy because for basically three or four months I couldn’t do that, I was stuck at home. I couldn’t play my golf, couldn’t play my tennis or just hang out.”
Next week, Woodcock is looking forward to returning to some part-time work at Wellington College.
His brother Leigh Woodcock recently set up a Givealittle page to help raise funds for Woodcock’s treatment and ease the everyday financial pressures on the family.
Woodcock, who describes himself as a fairly private person, said the support he had received when news of his illness spread had been overwhelming.
“That influx, the Givealittle page ... a lot of people have reached out, people I haven’t spoken to for a while. It’s been incredible, I can’t thank everyone enough and just every little bit, some fundraising things that are happening, it means a lot.”
Woodcock played seven white-ball games for the Black Caps between 2010 and 2011 and enjoyed a first-class career for Wellington that spanned 17 years.
The Wellington Firebirds record-holder retired at the end of the 2018-2019 season, before going fulltime into coaching.
Woody, as he is affectionately known, was part of the Wellington Blaze coaching team for several years until joining the sports department at Wellington College in the middle of last year.
Through coaching the Wellington Blaze, Woodcock played a big part in the development of White Ferns players such as current captain Melie Kerr, who was shocked to hear the news.
Kerr, a right-arm leg-spin bowler and top-order batter, said she enjoyed talking tactics with Woodcock, who bowled left-arm spin during his career.
“In the women’s game, you’ve seen spin dominate the game, left-arm spin dominate the game, so I loved to use and abuse his shoulder and practice facing a lot of left-arm spin in the nets against him,” Kerr said.
Kerr said winning the Twenty20 Super Smash title in her first full year as captain of the Blaze in 2024 was one of her favourite cricket memories.
“It was such a special title to win with that group and captaining it also meant a whole lot more – working closely with the coaches and just trying to help the team as well. There’s a photo that’s been shared of Woody and I with the trophy, hugging, and it’s a really special photo to me and you can kind of see from that picture as well how much it meant to him to win that title as well.
“As a coach who I think worked in the men’s game before coming into the women’s game, to offer that passion and see how much he enjoyed seeing the success of others when we won that title, it was a pretty cool moment to have it captured as well.”
White Fern Maddy Green was also coached by Woodcock at the Blaze.
“He was really influential for me, I would often bat with him a lot through the winter and he’d throw me lots of balls and was always really generous with his time – you can just see he lives and breathes cricket,” Green said.
Blaze and White Fern veteran Jess Kerr described Woodcock as a bit of a “teddy bear” whose reputation as a hard worker around Cricket Wellington and New Zealand Cricket is “exceptional”.