The financial pressures of having a sick child had previously led the Dales to quit what had been a successful business and sell their Auckland home to pay creditors.
The Dales had been able to raise $2500 from a Give A Little page, but on Thursday last week the family got some excellent news - their insurance company, which had previously refused the family's claim a year ago, had overturned the decision and would now fund the growth hormone.
"It was actually my old insurance adviser who originally sold me the insurance. I spoke with him about how I thought it was wrong that they deemed his requirement for growth hormone not medically necessary," said Toby's mother, Jacquie.
"He asked them to review - actually he went beyond his call of duty and we sent them tonnes of information. I had no faith that it would be overturned as I was no longer a client.
"It has restored my faith in human nature and insurance companies," she said.
In other countries growth hormone is fully funded up to the age of 14. In New Zealand however, the Ministry of Health criteria is based solely on height, and Toby was always been a shade over.
Toby's father Tim said it was a little frustrating having such rigid criteria, when all they need to do is look at Finn to see where Toby should be.
"Look at his twin - that's what you should be comparing him to, not some chart," he said. The hormone would have been an ongoing expense, with children remaining on it until puberty.
"If it weren't for the growth hormone he wouldn't be ready to start school," said Jacquie.
"When Dani [the reporter] came to do the interview last year, Toby was just lying on the sofa sleeping. Last year his energy levels were really low and he tired really easily. Now he's making up for it by falling out of trees and things."
It's quite a change for a child who spent the best part of the first three years of life in hospital. Toby also suffers chronic lung disease from his time spent on a ventilator as a premature baby.
"His winters are always bad and when he gets sick it means hospitalisation, but this year he's been able to bounce back at home. He's just so much stronger," said Jacquie. "It's the same with his digestive system, he just so much more able to process food."
Toby's appetite has come on strides as well.
"Within the first three weeks he sat down at the table and he was actually eating. I rang the nurse and said is this the growth hormones? And she said yes, it works straight away."
Toby still cannot eat all the calories he needs as he plays catch-up with Finn, but the feeding tube is now inserted into the stomachinstead of a nose tube, so Toby sleeps more comfortably.
