When Table Top plasterer Tom Noordam received a leukemia diagnosis earlier this month, he thought of his late friend Ricky and the Jensen family.
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Mr Noordam, who felt well pre-diagnosis, remembered that Ricky had complained of sore ankles during a basketball game not long before the young man's shock diagnosis in 2009.
"I literally had no real symptoms other than losing weight," he said.
"I thought I was stressed; I'd lost 20 kilos and hadn't changed my diet.
"My mate was over one day and goes, 'I think you should go to the doctor and get checked out'.
"I've ended up with chronic myeloid leukemia.
"Whereas Ricky, he had acute myeloid, so his was way more aggressive."
All the learnings from Ricky's cancer journey, and that of late football coach Karl Jacka, went into the creation of a cBAG, or 'care bag for cancer' including a planner for managing the condition.
Mr Noordam said it was moving to receive the resource while at the Albury-Wodonga Regional Cancer Centre, knowing it had been created in memory of his late friend.
"I have a lot of support around me and that definitely has to have helped," he said.
"My wife is a teacher like Cristy, so she set it all up and usually comes to my appointments - it really helps.
"They are already seeing results with tablets I have been given, all within two weeks.
"I've been pretty lucky."
Since the cBAG and the cPLAN were launched by the Albury Wodonga Cancer Foundation in 2019, Jenny Jensen and Cristy Jacka have continued to work on taking their resource national.
The Rotary Club of Albury is a partner in the project and donated another $15,000 this week.
Mrs Jensen told Rotary it would go towards the cost of the planners.
"Because of Rotary, we got a lot of enquiries from groups around Australia and hopefully this will go further afield."
The planner is now designed for any medical condition after community requests, and Mrs Jacka said it was helpful for anyone.
"When you get 15,000 questions asked of you, you can just hand this over," she said.
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"Never did I think that this project would be helping somebody so close to us.
"That's the legacy of our boys, and it shows Lucy that her Dad can still influence so many people."
Rotary Club members are helping pack cBAGs, which are distributed at the cancer centre and businesses.
