WSTBROOK – Not everyone can say they’ve stayed in touch with their childhood friends, let alone remained close, but the friends rallying around one local man aren’t letting anything stand in their way of their childhood bonds. Not even cancer.

Right now, Ian Julian of Westbrook is battling for his life for the third time against aggressive brain tumors, and his friends are there, offering their support in the form of an “’80s Prom” event Saturday, May 21 – his 31st birthday – at the Buffalo Ballroom at Binga’s Stadium in Portland.

“We’ve been friends with Ian since grade school,” said Shannon Johnson, 31, who is co-ordinating the event.

Johnson said 100 percent of event proceeds will be donated to a fund for Julian and his mother, Christine Julian, who has spent so much time tending to her son’s illness it cost her her job.

Christine Julian said her son was first diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2001. It took an 18-hour surgery at a hospital in Boston to remove it.

“It was like the size of a fist,” she said.

A year and a half later, she said, the tumor came back, and once again, Ian beat it, this time with radiation and chemotherapy. By 2004, Christine Julian said, the cancer was in remission.

But in 2009, the cancer returned.

“He started having balance issues, and I just knew,” she said, her voice breaking.

Surgeons managed to remove 95 percent of it, but the rest was too close to the brain stem to operate, Christine Julian said,

In January, her son went on life support briefly, and his mother spent so much time caring for him that she lost her job at an auto parts store. Now, she has financial problems to worry about on top of her son’s deteriorating health.

It’s a day-to-day thing,” she said. “It’s a nightmare.”

Emily Tibbetts, 30, another of Julian’s friends, said learning that his mother lost her job was part of what inspired she and other childhood friends to help.

“We realized they just don’t have anything,” she said.

They organized a spaghetti dinner benefit late last year, but now are looking to put on a larger event. Everything, Tibbetts said, including the space at Binga’s Stadium, has been donated, so that 100 percent of the money from the event will go to the fund for the Julian family.

“Every penny will go to them,” she said.

Johnson said she remained close to Ian and his mother over the years, and Christine Julian said that friendship has mattered throughout Ian’s illness.

“I think his friends are amazing, and they’ve kept him going all these years,” she said. “Without them, I don’t know what would have happened. They keep him going. They keep him fighting. He perks right up” when friends visit. “He can’t talk, but he gives them a smile.”

Johnson said when she became pregnant with her son, she remembered Ian telling her he wouldn’t live long enough to see the child born.

“My son’s now 18 months (old), and he’s still with us,” she said.

Johnson called the group of friends “our little rat pack,” a term that made Christine Julian laugh.

“They still are,” she said. “That’s great, isn’t it, when you can hold on to a friendship that long.”