Albion Park parents Lara and Glaucco Tomaz knew there was more to their son's Zac's ongoing lethargy and fevers than the common cold.
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So after a few trips to the doctor - and following the advice to take their three-year-old home and treat his symptoms - they went back and requested blood tests.
Within hours, the doctor rang them back - telling them to head straight to Wollongong Hospital's emergency department where a team of doctors would be waiting.
"The whole family had been sick with a cold or flu, and then we got hit by another bug, so we initially thought Zac had the same," Mrs Tomaz said.
"Yet while we all recovered, the list of symptoms kept growing for Zac. As well as the extreme lethargy and continued high fevers, he got to the stage where he was barely eating or sleeping.
"He's usually very energetic so when he stopped wanting to walk, because he said his legs were hurting too much, and he started to get an almost grey tinge to his skin, we knew there was more to it."
Zac would undergo an emergency blood transfusion at Wollongong before being transferred to Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick.
"He has a bone marrow test which confirmed our worst fears - he had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia," Mrs Tomaz said.
"That was last October and since then our family has often been split three ways - with one of us at work, one at hospital with Zac and our five-year-old son Zion looked after by family.
"We've been told Zac is responding well to treatment and has a good prognosis - that there's a 90 to 95 per cent chance of full recovery, which has given us amazing hope.
"However the journey we have to walk to get there is very difficult."
Zac is almost halfway through nine months of intensive chemotherapy, and he's mostly dealing well with it. He can get sick, and tired, and there's the added risk of infection.
"After he was discharged from hospital and first undergoing chemo as an outpatient, we were still required to stay within an hour of the hospital," Mrs Tomaz said.
"That's because the chemo brings his immunity down and makes him susceptible to infections.
"Now he's been allowed home but there's still a lot of unpredictability - at any point he gets a temperature we still have to rush him to hospital.
"So we still have a bag packed ready to go at any moment."
The Tomaz' third child is due in June, and Zac's intensive treatment will be finished not long after - although his treatment won't completely finish for a full two years after the start date.
On Monday, the couple received a helping hand from the Illawarra Community Foundation - some food and fuel vouchers thanks to funds raised through the i98FM Illawarra Convoy.
Breakfast announcer, and Convoy founder, Marty Haynes said it was great to see the funds going where they were most needed.
"That's why Convoy is such a success - because all the money we are able to raise stays in the community," he said.
Preparations are well underway for this November's Convoy, while Illawarra Community Foundation manager Mark Rigby said submissions for support were open all year.
"Last year's Convoy raised over $2.76 million," he said.
"We donated $1.2 million to Wollongong Hospital for stage two of the children's ward redevelopment, and we continue to support families affected by potentially life-threatening medical conditions."
Visit www.illawarraconvoy.com.au to make a submission.