AN appeal to help a man fighting stage four bowel cancer raised an astonishing £80,000 within 48 hours of being launched.

Lauren Dullea, who lives in the Braintree area, set up a GoFundMe donation page on January 9 to raise funds for husband Thomas Dullea’s on-going battle with cancer.

Since the page was set up, there has been a deluge of donations from more than 800 different people, resulting in the page receiving £80,204 so far.

The staggering amount of money will be used to buy the drug Avastin, an expensive drug which is only available privately and will hopefully extend Thomas’ life expectancy.

Lauren explained via a heartfelt post on the donation page why this drug is important and why the family are raising funds.

She said: “Avastin is a drug which works effectively with Lonsurf and studies show that life expectancy is far longer than just taking Lonsurf alone.

“However, this is only available privately and so we are desperately trying to raise money for this drug so that our children Hudson and Ottilie have longer with their dad.

“We don’t want lavish holidays, days out or amazing experiences. We just want to spend time with Thomas for as long as possible doing normal.

“Things like playing football in the garden with his son or tea parties at the table with his little girl.

The family have been told the drug costs £6,500 a month which covers the chemotherapy itself, the costs associated with the nursing care Thomas needs, and any potential unexpected costs.

At the time of writing, the GofundMe page has received 810 separate donations from caring donors.

It comes after Thomas was originally diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer in 2021 on the day daughter Ottilie was born.

Thankfully, prior to the diagnosis Thomas realised something was wrong and spoke to a GP.

After a colonoscopy, a polyp was detected, and he underwent an operation to remove a large part of his large bowel and a post op biopsy confirmed the polyp as cancer.

However, symptoms returned and by December 2022, a stage four bowel cancer diagnosis was confirmed.

Lauren said: "Thomas remains thankful for so many things and constantly reminds himself that it could always be worse."

To donate to the fundraiser and to find out more information, go to tinyurl.com/3es7c858.