West Sussex woman raising £20k to help mother fight stage four cancer

Lorna Matthews from Arundel has been battling stage 4 oesophageal cancer (Photo: Donna Bailey).Lorna Matthews from Arundel has been battling stage 4 oesophageal cancer (Photo: Donna Bailey).
Lorna Matthews from Arundel has been battling stage 4 oesophageal cancer (Photo: Donna Bailey).
Determined daughter Donna, 38, and her siblings have raised more than £20,000 to help fund cancer treatment for her ‘lovely mum’.

Lorna Matthews, 55, from Arundel, has been battling stage 4 oesophageal cancer for the last two years.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She has undergone numerous rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. However, these treatments are no longer effective, and her family says her hope now lies in a new, promising treatment that costs £5,892.75 per cycle, with three cycles required to assess its effectiveness.

Through a GoFundMe page appealing to the public created by her daughter Donna Bailey, just under £22,0000 has already been raised. They have recently extended the target to £40,000, and have received over 650 donations so far.

Lorna Matthews pictured with one of her grandsons.Lorna Matthews pictured with one of her grandsons.
Lorna Matthews pictured with one of her grandsons.

Donna said: “We started a GoFundMe just to give her more time with her family.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“She’s so lovely my mum, she’s never smoked, she doesn’t drink and has been working in the NHS since she was a little girl. She’s just the loveliest person and she’s really poorly.”

On the GoFundMe page, Donna added: “The financial burden of this treatment is overwhelming for our family. We are doing everything we can to support her but we cannot do it alone. That is why we are turning to the kindness and generosity of others. Every donation, no matter how small, will bring us one step closer to giving Lorna a fighting chance. Thank you.”

Donna also spoke about how she got the kind donations to start coming in.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad
Lorna with her family (Credit: Donna Bailey).Lorna with her family (Credit: Donna Bailey).
Lorna with her family (Credit: Donna Bailey).

She said: “When it went up, I put it on my Facebook and added everyone I could think of because I've lived in Worthing, Crawley and Cornwall. I’m not the sort of person to ask for money from other people, but I have to do it for my mum. I’d do anything for her.”

Donna’s mum Lorna Matthews said: “There's been times when I've probably not wanted to wake up the next day. I keep going for my family because they mean everything to me.

“They're just amazing. My children set up the GoFundMe page for me, my son's doing a run the length of England... to do those things for your mum is quite phenomenal. I think that shows how much of a loving family we are.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"I've got fantastic friends and work colleagues who are fully supporting me. I've got a wonderful husband. So, yeah, it gives me a lot of strength.”

Able Rate (AB) Will Matthews, the son of Lorna also completed a 414-mile trek that started in Gretna Green on the Scottish border. On October 5, he completed the 16-marathon distance at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. The 21-year-old member of the navy said that he was ‘glad to have raised a lot of money for the fundraiser’.

To donate, visit the GoFundMe page at https://gofund.me/229ac15d.

Related topics:

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.