How Queensland couple who are both battling cancer defied doctor's expectations ... trends now
A couple who both received extremely rare and devastating cancer diagnoses have defied doctor's expectations to have two children.
Tony Cook, 54, was given just three months to live when doctors found a seven centimetre tumour in his brain in 2019.
He and his wife Samantha, 36, from outback Queensland, were told by doctors they had a week-long window to try for children before he started his gruelling treatment.
Miraculously, she fell pregnant. But the couple were plunged into fresh despair when Samantha was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at her 14-week scan and doctors had to remove an ovary.
The couple, who live in Blackall south-east of Longreach, now have two children under five and Tony continues to outlive doctor's expectations.
'Ovarian cancer is never normally found until an advanced stage so we were extremely lucky for that,' Samantha told Daily Mail Australia.
'Honestly, if it hadn't been for Tony's terminal diagnosis we wouldn't have got pregnant and found the ovarian cancer.'
Samantha and Tony (above) only tried for children after doctor's told them he had three months to live
The couple pose with son Wyatt, who is two years old. Above, the pair are perched on woollen fleece
Their world first turned upside down when they were on a motor biking holiday in 2019 after a six-month stint at a sheep station where Tony worked as a shearer and Samantha a wool classer.
'I woke up one morning and Tony was just lathered in sweat and then he started vomiting,' she said.
'I got an ambulance to take him to hospital. We were sent home twice because they couldn't work out what was wrong with him.
'That night it was like he was possessed, he was so unwell. He couldn't settle so I took him back to Chinchilla hospital where they kept him for three days but couldn't work out what was wrong with him.
Eventually he had a CT scan and Samantha was told to drive him to the emergency unit in Toowoomba.
'They told us he had a seven-and-a-half centimetre brain tumour and they flow him by helicopter to Brisbane where they operated within 24 hours.'
'Tony was out of hospital four days after that because
