Three months ago, Dan Fong was running parkrun with his boys. Now he is undergoing treatment for a rare trio of cancers.
Dan, 39, a builder, husband and father of four, from Mudjimba, has been diagnosed with leukaemia/lymphoma unclassified and thyroid cancer.
He is undergoing chemotherapy in Sunshine Coast University Hospital to try and beat the cancers into remission so he can undergo an operation to remove the thyroid, radiation and a bone marrow transplant in Brisbane.
Friends have organised fundraisers to try and support him and his family the tough hand life has dealt them.
His wife, Lisa, said the diagnosis has been incredibly hard on them and their sons, aged seven to 13.
“It’s like living in a chamber of torture as you never know what the next hour will bring,” she said.
“Over the years we have worked hard and have a really good marriage. We are a really close family unit, he is such a good man and father, and life just feels so brutal right now.
Lisa said Dan’s symptoms began innocently enough with some shoulder pain at the beginning of May.
“He felt that it was from a surfing accident. He had a big wipeout a few months ago,” she said.
A doctor put the pain down to whiplash and an MRI came back clear but two days later, Dan was not well enough to watch his youngest son play football.
“Ï looked at him and said, ‘’I’m taking you to hospital’. I just had this feeling something was not right,” Lisa said.
She said Dan was initially diagnosed at the hospital with a shoulder condition but continued to deteriorate to the point where he could not walk or shower himself.
“It got to day eight and I used Ryan’s Rule (a rule allowing a patient’s friends or family to request a clinical review if a patient is not recovering as expected),” she said.
“I pleaded my case with the man in charge. I wanted every test,” Lisa said.
Lumbar punctures and other tests and biopsies followed which led to the discovery of lesions and the diagnosis of three types of cancer.
“They’ve never had a case like him before. The specialist thinks there has been maybe 10 cases in the world, but even those are all different,” Lisa said.
“It’s very hard for the doctors. Before you’re in this position, you think that if anything like this happens, the doctors will just figure out what’s wrong but that just isn’t the case,” she said.
She said Dan was “having the kitchen sink thrown at him” in terms of treatment, with week-long sessions of chemotherapy and also twice weekly chemotherapy through lumbar punctures to fight the cancers.
“I said to him last night, ‘Are you sick of this?’ and he said I’m trying not to think about to because I’ve got so much more to do,” she said.
Lisa said the pain relief provided in hospital had also lifted his spirits and he was able to walk again, albeit with the use of a walker.
“We’re trying not to ask, ‘Why us? Because why not us?’ It is what it is and we just need to navigate through and do our best to get him back to full health,” she said.
Dan has spent most of the past two months in hospital and, even after a transplant, will face at least three months in Brisbane before he can come home.
Lisa said the boys were handling their father’s illness as well as could be expected but were very much missing their active Dad, who usually surfs and runs with them and is involved in their sports.
Loving family members on both sides of the family in Australia and New Zealand are spending time on the Sunshine Coast on a “roster” to help out.
Both Dan and Lisa are self-employed and friends and family, aware of the financial strain upon them, have organised online fundraisers on their behalf.
A givealittle fundraiser in New Zealand, where the Fongs lived prior to moving to the Sunshine Coast, has raised more than $40,000 and a GoFundMe account for Australia donations has been established.
Members of the public are also encouraged to register as bone marrow donors, particularly if of Maori-Chinese or Pacific Islander descent.
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