Fighting for the love of her life: Wife raises £60k in four days for husband's cancer treatment

A woman whose husband is fighting leukaemia for the second time in three years has managed to raise more than £60,000 in four days to fund life-saving treatment. Mike Brandon, from Bristol, was initially diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) in January 2014, just a month after he proposed to his fiancée Kate.

The couple were told Mike would need a stem cell transplant to survive, and Kate began a viral campaign #Shake4Mike to find a donor – and by June that year, Mike had found a match and got his transplant.

But this Easter, less than a year after the couple's wedding, Mike was once again diagnosed with leukaemia, with the only option left to him is a potentially revolutionary new treatment in Pennsylvania, US, where Mike is eligible to be a candidate in a new study.

However, the couple has once again reached a hurdle, needing to find £400,000 to fund the medical costs linked with the treatment, while the treatment itself will be funded by the research centre.

Kate, facing losing her husband for a second time, set up a GoFundMe page, and reached £61,442 within four days of posting her appeal, with £340,000 left to go.

She wrote on the page: "Having battled through rejection of multiple anti-Cancer drugs, undergoing more than 20 gruelling bone marrow biopsies, contracting pneumonia and receiving five further infusions of cells from his donor, we all believed he was on the path to full recovery.

"But the day before Easter Friday we were given the devastating news that Mike's leukaemia had returned and was spreading at an aggressive rate.

"Having exhausted all of the options available to us in the UK we were informed of a revolutionary new treatment that has shown extraordinary rates of success for people in Mike's position."

She added: "I know Mike will not mean the same to you as he does to me, but I am facing the pain of losing the person I care for most in the entire world, so anything you can do to help, I will be eternally grateful for."

Having seen a surge in stem cell donors following their viral appeal, the pair are hoping the internet community will once again be able to give Mike a chance at life.

To donate, visit: www.gofundme.com/donate4mike