YELLOWKNIFE - A former DJ diagnosed with esophageal cancer four months ago is getting a little help from his friends this week.

Friends of Tim Noble, 38, are gathering this Friday night at the Top Knight pub to hold a fundraiser for Noble and his family.

Tim Noble, who is recovering from an operation to remove esophageal cancer from his throat, sits with his wife, Isabelle, and his two children, Alexander and Myia. A fundraiser for his family will be held Friday at the Top Knight. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

The money will go mainly towards helping pay for the costs incurred by his family for flights and accommodation in Edmonton during Noble's surgery and hospital stay, which totalled approximately $4,000.

"We didn't expect this," said a visibly weak, soft-spoken Noble of this Friday's fundraiser.

Noble, his wife and two kids (six-year-old Alexander and eight-month-old Myia) are currently staying at the home of his in-laws.

The Nobles had to move out of their rented home because they could no longer afford to pay the $1,800 a month rent.

Noble's wife, Isabelle, said she is thankful to her friends, many of whom she first met while working in Yellowknife bars.

"It's amazing, because you work with people in the bars but eventually everyone goes their own separate ways and you wish you had all of your friends," she said. "Then, something like this happens, and all of a sudden, everybody's there for us."

Noble, who DJ-ed in Yellowknife for eight years until 2003, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last January. Isabelle remembers the day he got the news.

"Tim got a phone call at work and the doctor said, ‘You have cancer. Is it okay if we book you for surgery in Edmonton?' And that was it," she said.

The surgery lasted six hours.

"They had to take all of my esophagus out just to make sure that they got everything," said Noble.

"And they took part of my stomach out and moved part of my stomach up to make my esophagus and stomach all into one. It's pretty much just a tube now. I don't have much of a holding area for my stomach anymore."

The surgery meant a radical change in Noble's eating patterns.

"I have to eat six small meals a day," he said. "More liquids than anything right now. Yogurt and soup. Nothing hard or crunchy."

The wear of the last few months is visible on Isabelle's face. She said the last few months have been "go-go-go."

"We haven't been able to relax. We were in Edmonton for three weeks. Then we came here. We haven't been able to be a family and just be home and just take everything in."

The fundraiser will begin at 5 p.m.