Cruel blow for Moon wedding couple as cancer strikes for a second time; Crowd-funder appeal is launched to buy a drug - and more family time - for much-loved for dad of two.
Byline: Barbara Hodgson
It was meant to mark the start of a future full of promise. When Janine Routledge and Dave Jameson married in Newcastle in February, they saw the day as a happy ending after what had been a gruelling battle.
Having completed his treatment for a rare cancer in the spine, Dave called their unique wedding - the first to be held at a giant Moon exhibit atLife Science Centre- was the "icing on the cake".
And they were simply looking forward to life - for themselves and daughters Lori, 15, and nine-year-old Eleanor - getting back to normal.
But just weeks aftertheir joyous wedding, the newly-weds from Whitley Bay were dealt a terrible blow when they learned 45-year-old Dave's cancer had returned - and this time was incurable.
With Dave currently waiting for a bone marrow transplant, Janine says what's happened is just "cruel".
She had feared something was wrong when her husband mentioned having pain in his bones.
"Obviously we thought we had the all-clear and it was absolutely fine for just a couple of months after but then I sort of knew," she saiid. "I can tell when there's something not right."
The pain then moved to different parts of Dave's body and felt "like someone was drilling a hole through his bones", she recalled.
One day it came to a head and Janine, 36, had to drive him to hospital where they found themselves plunged back into a cycle of tests as well as a painful bone marrow biopsy.
After a CAT scan on April 30, which revealed that cancer had spread and was in his bone marrow, Dave was diagnosed with multiple myeloma: a rare and incurable blood cancer.
Telling their youngest Eleanor was "one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my life", says Eleaner, adding: "She's just nine."
They'd told Eleanor about Dave's first diagnosis only after his treatment had appeared successful.
"We told her it was gone and he was better but we had to tell her this time as Dave is going to lose his hair so we're not able to keep it from her."
Daughter Lori is also currently "very tearful and upset".
Dave, a services manager for the Gateshead branch of IT firm Pulsant, has already undergone a first round of chemotherapy and is to have his stem cell transplant later this year.
But there is a drug, Revlamid, also known as Lenalidomide, which has offered them some hope.
It can double life expectancy after diagnosis, says Janine, and, whatever the time scale, that's a huge thing which would make "a world of...
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