GENEROUS wellwishers have raised more than £40,000 in less than 24 hours to pay for experimental treatment for a terminally ill little boy.

Since featuring on the Dorset Echo website yesterday, a Go Fund Me site set up by Adele Blaker, mum to five-year-old Riley, has smashed its fundraising target.

The site was set up on Friday and had already reached £7,000 in three days, but more than 1,600 people have now donated.

The money will be spent to pay privately for experimental treatment for Riley, a pupil at St Nicholas and St Laurence School in Weymouth.

It is not to cure him, but will give him up to two more years for his family to make precious memories with him.

The treatment will cost between £35,000 and £38,000 but further bouts of chemotherapy will cost £2,000 each, so Adele set the fundraising target at £50,000.

Speaking to the Dorset Echo yesterday, Adele said: “We know we have dark days ahead of us, but this is our chance to make memories.”

Adele said she has been ‘deeply humbled and overwhelmed’ by the support her community has already shown to Riley, with many people organising events to raise money for the family since his diagnosis in September.

The Dorset Echo helped to publicise some of these events – but didn’t identify Riley at the request of his family.

Now, Adele and husband Brian, 45, of Weymouth, are speaking out publicly to appeal for help.

Leading neurosurgeon Professor Steven Gill, who is based in Bristol, has pioneered an experimental treatment. But the team are still lobbying for funds to run a trial. The treatment is most effective when carried out as soon after a course of radiotherapy as possible.

Riley completed a gruelling round of radiotherapy before Christmas, so he is not eligible for the trial.
The Dorset Echo is backing their appeal to raise between £35,000 and £38,000 to pay for the treatment privately.

The fundraising page can be found here

Adele said: “The radiotherapy has helped, it has shrunk the tumour. He is actually a good candidate for the trial, but the timing is wrong. His quality of life is key to us, and he has that. He is an energetic little boy, although he tires easily, who loves to play Power Rangers in the living room.

“As his parents, we need to do everything we can. We can’t look back and have regrets and questions whether we could have done something more.”

Riley suffers from a type of brain tumour called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), an inoperable malignant brain tumour.

Symptoms of the condition vary, but Riley developed a squint in August and his parents noticed he had trouble balancing.

The treatment is called Convection Enhanced Delivery (CED) and works by injecting chemotherapy drugs directly into the tumour through small tubes. The drugs would ordinarily not be able to reach the tumour because of the blood brain barrier, so Riley has had radiotherapy to treat the symptoms. No other treatments are available on the NHS.

A fundraising website set up on Friday by Adele has raised more than £7,000 already and been shared more than 1,000 times.

Riley was diagnosed with a brain tumour two days after starting primary school at St Nicholas and St Laurence in September. He was given between six and nine months to live.

Adele said the school ‘treated him like one of their own’ since day one, organising cake sales and events to raise money for the family. The funds raised by wellwishers have helped the family go on holidays to Centerparcs and Disneyland Paris, making memories that for Adele and Brian will last a lifetime.

Adele said: “He is actually getting quite spoilt. His fifth birthday party was a huge event at Weymouth Pavilion with a group of Stormtroopers, as he loves Star Wars.

“We did not anticipate the level of generosity from family, friends, strangers. It gives you faith at a time when the faith has been knocked out of you.

“We are realistic. His chances of surviving are miniscule. But at the rate science is developing, then one day a child will survive this. Why not Riley?”