(Relapse) Family Surviving Rare Cancer

This is me (Ayla), my fiance Julian and this is our story.

A year after we met in 2012, we moved from New Zealand to Australia in hopes of making a life for ourselves in a decent economy. I fell pregnant about a month prior to flying out, and found out a week before our flight. I was 6 weeks and 4 days. After another 6 weeks of being terrified, not knowing what to do, being in a new country with no family and only a couple friends of Julian's who I didn't know very well, I was admitted to hospital to have a D&C. I was having a miscarriage at 14 weeks gestation.

We both grieved for our loss and even time couldn't heal this kind of broken heart. Life does go on, and late 2013 around the time I would have delivered, we decided to try for a baby. January 2014, I fell pregnant and we were so excited to meet our bundle of joy. 

When I was four months along, Julian started getting bad neck, back and tailbone pain. After countless efforts in attempt to resolve the relentless pain, he went to a specialist after being diagnosed with Sacroiliitis - essentially arthritis in the sacrum. With physiotherapy, various drugs for mental stability and nerve pain along with being prescribed morphine, the pain persisted and the problem was just getting worse. He was told to go in to a specialist in the city for cortizone injections in a few different spots from hip to sacrum. Nothing was working, and he was missing out on time with our newborn due to pain and frustration of not having a proper diagnosis. We managed to get through the pregnancy and he held his son in his arms for the first time.

Little Finn Elijah John Coulston was born on 13th October, 2014. I think he was a good distraction but Julians pain soon made it's way back into the foreground of our everyday life. He couldn't do things normal dads could do with their son, things as simple as changing a nappy, bending over to pick up Finn from the cot or sitting down cuddling Finn or me for that matter was and still is difficult to this day. His doctor later diagnosed him with Pilonidal Disease in February 2015, when he went in complaining of the same pain accompanied by a hard small mass that reacted painfully to pressure. The doctor gave him a script for a higher dose of morphine and booked him in for surgery to have the mass removed in September of 2015 After 16 months of misdiagnosis, May 2015, he decided to get a second opinion. He went to his appointment at a new (for us) family run medical centre and had various scans and full blood tests done. He got a call one day later saying to come in as soon as possible. He picked up Finn and I, and we went straight there to get the final diagnosis. Our hearts dropped as the doctor said words like large mass, tumour, treatment options, oncology. He told us how sorry he was to be the one to give us the bad news as we shook his hand and left his office. This wonderful doctor has lengthened Julian's life if not saved it completely. 

One week before cancer diagnosis...

Three weeks after round 1 of Chemotherapy, he started noticing quite a lot of hairloss and decided to be in charge of when and how he loses his hair.... Doctors said it was inevitable with the amount of chemo he would be receiving. Each round is a heavy dose for 3 days with fluids in between 4 hour intervals. 

So proud of him and I think it looks pretty good anyway!
He has his bad days but he's going strong.  Two down!
Three treatments down, still going strong and had stem cells removed. In hopes of getting 6 stem cells, they successfully removed 11 and gave him a blood infusion to assist in low Hemoglobin (red blood cell) levels. 
We don't get many smiling family photos, I think when I looked through them all this was the only one I could find. We had set our hearts on buying our first home this year, and getting married next year, around spring 2016. This is no longer a possibility for us and it is quite heartbreaking knowing I don't share my fiance and son's last name. 

Julian has been unable to return to work, and I have been waiting to receive assistance to put Finn into day care so I can return to work. We are now 5 months behind on our car payments amongst other bills, and getting more and more behind on other bills every week...
Nobody knows how much time they have to live their life. Julian was given 5 years, 6 months of which are already gone. Doctors have been a bit concerned that his tumour is not reacting in any way to chemotherapy, but are hoppeful that it's because it is too early for a positive or negative result.

We are hanging on to every moment we have together as a family, and are preparing for the worst. If there's one thing I could wish for, it would be to live debt free or close to it as a wife to the bravest man I've ever met. We've been through so much already, and would absolutely love to be able to even catch up on bills. 

Any money donated to us will be used first to go towards getting to and from hospital, basic necessities, then bills, and anything more I would like to put away and save for a small wedding. Julian finishes chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment in 10 months time and I know it would give him more stability knowing whatever happens, at least we gave it our best shot.

Thanks to family and friends who have supported us in these last months. It has made a huge difference in our lives and we couldn't be more thankful to you all <3