A DEVASTATED daughter has launched a fundraising appeal to pay for life prolonging treatment for her mum who has been diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer and has just months left to live.

Debra Graham, 37, from Dorchester, has launched the fundraiser with the help of her siblings to try to raise at least £40,000 to pay for potentially life prolonging treatment for her mum Geraldine Morley, who was diagnosed with ocular melanoma – which affects less than 700 people in the UK each year – in March.

Mrs Morley has already sold her house to help pay for initial treatment.

Fearing time was running out, Debra brought the date of her rescheduled wedding forward so her mum could be there – but she said it 'felt like our last happy gathering as a family'.

Mrs Morley, 64, also of Dorchester, had her eye removed earlier this year and she and her family hoped that was the end of her cancer journey.

Sadly, just two months later, doctors found the cancer had spread to her blood and she was told she had between three and five years to live. Then, in August, it was discovered the cancer had spread to her liver, and she was given a six month prognosis.

Her three children are hoping to raise enough money so she can continue to have chemosaturation therapy, a treatment not currently provided by the NHS, which allows for very high concentrations of chemotherapy to be administered directly to the liver in isolation and then cleared from the blood.

The NHS was running trials of the therapy and Mrs Morley would likely have been a candidate – but the trials were stopped at the outbreak of the pandemic.

It costs £40,000 per session to pay for the treatment privately, and Mrs Morley may need up to six sessions if it is found to be effective at slowing the growth of the cancer on her liver.

Mrs Morley has had one session and was due to have another yesterday. Funds were raised from the sale of her house and the family rallying round.

A public fundraiser has been launched so more money can be raised for additional sessions.

Debra said: "It was such a shock when we found out she could have such little time left and it has been made so much harder by us not being able to hug each other and support one another as we normally would because of the Covid restrictions.

"My mum is always the one that sorts everything out - she's the one that plans and organises things and she does so much for us all but, this time, she doesn't have the energy to fight her own fight so we all need to fight for her."

Debra's family is no stranger to cancer. Ten years ago, her father, Howard Morley, then 54, was diagnosed with bowel cancer and then liver cancer which he had treatment for. This year, he was diagnosed with skin cancer.

Debra said: "It was when my mum was at a hospital appointment to talk about her cancer that a doctor noticed the mole on my dad's head which turned out to be a melanoma. Cancer has ripped through my family."

Debra and her partner Paul got married on November 1 after their initial wedding date in April was postponed due to the pandemic. The couple rescheduled for April 2021 but, after they found out Geraldine might have just months to live, they brought the wedding forward so she could be part of it.

Debra said: "In order to have mum at the wedding, none of Paul's family could come as his dad lives in Portugal and siblings in Manchester which both had restrictions on travel.

"It was a really hard choice but I would make it again. It meant so much to me and to my mum that she could be there and it almost felt like our last happy gathering as a family."

To donate to Geraldine's justgiving page, visit https://uk.gofundme.com/f/more-time-for-mum

See more pictures of Debra's wedding here