A Vancouver Island family is getting through the holidays as best they can after their one-month-old baby girl became the youngest ever leukemia patient treated at BC Children's Hospital.

Little Molly Campbell was airlifted to Vancouver on Christmas Eve after doctors determined she has a rare form of blood cancer: acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She's been given just a 20-per-cent chance of survival.

"They sat us down and told us that it was pretty serious," dad Dave said. "Right now, we're just hanging on to a few precious moments here.

He and his wife Rebekah haven't left Molly's bedside since she entered the hospital, while grandparents are taking care of their four other young children back home in the Victoria suburb of Saanich.

The Campbell's had never spent a night away from their children, until now. They had to watch the kids open their Christmas presents over Skype.

"We're a pretty tight, tight family, so it's tough," Dave said.

He is the sole provider for the family of seven, but Molly's diagnosis means he can't work. That has friends worried about how this close-knit family will be able to make ends meet.

"Now to be hit with such a blow, where Dave's not going to be capable of working and needs to be at the hospital to financially sustain their mortgage, to rent a place in Vancouver and get the kids back and forth -- it's going to be very challenging for them," friend Ian Laing said.

Friends have set up a website and a trust account at Canadian Western Bank on Douglas Street in Victoria, looking for donations of any size to help Molly -- and to help her family stay together.

"We've lost our daughter -- the way she was -- and our friends and family really know that," Dave said.

"It's going to get a lot harder, and the baby's going to cry a lot and be in a lot of pain, and I think that's when I need to step up and be a little stronger and [Rebekah will] lean on me at that point. But right now she's definitely the strong one -- she's keeping me going."

Doctors say Molly will be in the hospital for at least six months. She starts her first round of chemotherapy next week, and her parents hope to be by her side the whole time.

To cover the cost, friends of the family are hoping to raise $30,000.

With a report from /A\ News' Louise Hartland