Hit Twice by Cancer, Family Retains Hope : Illness: Friends and relatives rally to aid Santa Ana couple struggling to provide for two sick sons.

She waits on tables. He plays in a band and sells cellular phones. Together, they are raising two boys, ages 5 and 7.

Michael and Yolanda Presley are not known to complain much. They say they have each other--and lots of friends too. But over the last four years, it seems that fate has been cruel to the young couple.

The hardest blow came just last month.

Michael, 30, and Yolanda, 27, learned that their older son, Jordan, has leukemia.

This devastating news came just as they were trying to get back on their feet after losing their home, cars, furniture and other belongings acquired over eight years of marriage because of medical expenses for their younger son, Jared, who was diagnosed with pelvic cancer when he was 17 months old.

Jared’s cancer is in remission, but the boy needs constant medical attention.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Yolanda Presley, who works at a Santa Ana restaurant. “But I deal with it by not dealing with it. I just don’t think about it. Otherwise, I’m sure I’d lose it.”

Friends and relatives have rallied in support of the couple. A fund-raiser Sunday night in Orange raised nearly $5,000, which will help the Presleys keep a leased van used to take Jordan to Children’s Hospital of Orange County, where he is undergoing chemotherapy.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Lisa Jackson, a friend of the Presleys who organized the fund-raiser. “This is a family that doesn’t deserve anything bad happening to them. They are being strong and pulling through.”

Jackson also has opened a trust account to help pay Jordan’s medical bills, which by now are more than $100,000.

Michael Presley said he does not know how he will ever be able to pay the medical bills. Their concern right now is the condition of their son, he said.

Jordan’s doctor, Violet Shen, said that the boy has responded well to the treatment and his chances of survival are better than 70%.

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“Most children are able to go back to school and resume normal activities,” Shen said. “After the first few months, it tends to be easier on the patient.”

She said that Jordan’s condition has been diagnosed as a “moderate risk,” meaning that a bone marrow transplant is not necessary, but the boy must undergo at least 38 months of chemotherapy.

“Sometimes, I just don’t feel good,” said Jordan, who said he missed playing baseball and basketball and hates not going to school. Now, he says, he just sits around watching television or playing video games with his younger brother.

“I beat him all the time,” said Jared, who has been well for the last three years and goes to kindergarten at Santiago Elementary School, down the street in a quiet Santa Ana neighborhood, where the Presleys are renting a three-bedroom house.

Michael and Yolanda, who both grew up in Garden Grove, moved back to Orange County in August, hoping to make a fresh start after losing their home in Sun City in Riverside County, following the younger son’s illness.

First, they moved in with Michael Presley’s grandmother, Gertrude Sloniger, in Garden Grove and started looking for work.

Yolanda Presley got a job as a waitress at the Crazy Horse Steakhouse in Santa Ana, and Michael, who hurt his back while working as a carpenter more than five years ago, was hired as a salesman for Irvine-based Tellstar Cellular.

But two weeks into their new jobs, Michael Presley said that he noticed Jordan was not eating well. Then, the boy began to turn pale and complained that he was always tired.

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Following a blood test, doctors found that the boy has acute leukemia, a blood disorder that is often fatal. According to medical experts, without proper treatment, about 90% of leukemia patients die within a year.

“I just know that he’ll pull through,” Yolanda Presley said of Jordan, adding that losing their son has not even entered their minds. “It may be dumb, but that’s what I believe.”

She said that the illnesses of her two boys have forced her to be a “strong mother and a strong person and to mature rather quickly.” She and her husband were married when she was 19.

Michael Presley, who plays the guitar with the Jive Ponies, a four-man band of buddies from high school, said that he has found some strength in their misfortune.

“I could lose everything, and I won’t care as long as we’re together,” he said.