Strangers raise £80,000 in just two days for schoolboy who needs vital surgery on eye tumour

Strangers have raised almost £80,000 in a desperate race against time to make sure a brave teenage boy battling a rare form of cancer receives gets a vital operation.

Doctors have discovered that 13-year-old Ben Tylecote has a tumour growing behind his right eye.

An urgent operation is needed, but the £100,000 procedure is not funded by the NHS.

In desperation his family turned to GoFundMe – and the response has been overwhelming.

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Ben, from Oakham, east Midlands, has been diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a tumour which grows in the eye muscle.

The tumour was spotted after his family spotted his right eye was sticking out.

Doctors say he now urgently needs the operation to remove the growth in the next two weeks.

But with the NHS unable to fund the life-saving operation, his family have raised an astonishing £79,898 in just two days via Go Fund Me.

The money has been donated by 1,084 people.

The GoFundMe page reads: “Ben Tylecote is our wonderful, kind hearted, intelligent 13 year old boy. He loves sport and desperately wants to go back to school.

“Ben has a very rare cancerous tumour growing behind his right eye.

“This week, the NHS told us that they could not fund the £100,000 needed for an operation scheduled for the 4th September to remove his eye and the tumour.

“Ben urgently needs this treatment in the next 2 weeks, the advice from our consultant is that we cannot wait until September 13th when the decision to deny funding may be reviewed.

“The NHS have been fantastic but this is an aggressive cancer and time is critical.”

Surgery was scheduled for last month but called off at the last minute.

The GoFundMe page can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/bens-urgent-lifesaving-cancer-op