Fiona Long (Matt’s Mum) has posted the following update regarding the Crowdfunder for Matt Long‘s cancer treatment:

You guys are incredible – we have reached our latest target of £75,000 towards Matt’s cancer treatment this morning.

We have received the results of the genetic sequencing on Matt’s tumour this morning which means his cancer team now have much more detail on the makeup of the tumour and know exactly which drugs to use to damage it. Hopefully these will at the very least slow it down and maybe even kill it.

Thanks to all of you for giving him the funds to have access to this treatment – we now have to just hope the drugs and the new chemo will work this time.

As we have absolutely no idea at this stage what the cost of treatment will be or how long it is likely to go on for, we are going to extend the target to £100k and leave the Gofundme page running for the moment. I don’t want anyone to think we are taking advantage of your generosity but we have heard from people who have been in the same position who went through the £100k barrier in medical costs once they got involved in the cutting edge treatments in the US and Europe so we need to be prepared for potentially a few extra zeros on the end of things going forward.

I mentioned the benefit gig on my last update – we now have five being set up across the country in May and June, so we hope you will be able to come to one of those – some phenomenal artists involved from right across the blues and blues rock world in the UK. Please check the Catfish Facebook page for further information, locations and updates.

There is also an online auction being put together for us – we have already had some incredible donations including two guitars and a signed copy of Kate Bush’s latest book plus some original artwork and signed lyric sheets amongst other things. Thank you so much to those who have donated. If you have anything you would like to include in the auction, please direct message us on the Catfish Facebook page.

Thank you all for your continued support – it has really helped us navigate through the nightmare of the last couple of weeks to know that we aren’t doing this alone.

Fiona Long
(Matt’s mum)

You can donate to Matt’s Crowdfunder – here