Stephen Sutton, a British teenager who made his cancer battle public to raise money for charity, has posted a heartbreaking farewell to his many followers.
Sutton, who has over 116,000 fans on Facebook, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2010, aged 15. He had a tumour removed from his bowel, but sadly it returned a year later.
When Stephen learned that his cancer was terminal, he drew up a bucket list of 46 things he wanted to achieve in his remaining time. He has thus far completed 35, including hugging an elephant, playing the drums at a Wembley cup final and delivering a speech about his fight with cancer at 10 Downing Street.
Stephen also set himself another target, to raise £10,000 for charity. When he reached that goal, he changed the target to £1 million.
Yesterday, the brave teenager took to his social networking page to share his ‘final thumbs up’. In post that has since been shared around the globe, the young man told his many well-wishers: “It’s a shame the end has come so suddenly – there’s so many people I haven’t got round to properly thank or say goodbye to. Apologies for that.”
The post in full reads:
It’s a final thumbs up from me! I’ve done well to blag things as well as I have up till now, but unfortunately I think this is just one hurdle too far.
It’s a shame the end has come so suddenly- there’s so many people I haven’t got round to properly thank or say goodbye too. Apologies for that.
There was also so many exciting projects and things I didn’t get to see out. Hopefully some will continue and if you want to carry on the fundraising please do (justgiving.com/stephen-sutton-TCT is the link to donate to).
All future updates on this page will probably be from a family member. I hopefully may have the energy to write a few tweets (@_StephensStory). I will continue fighting for as long as I can, and whatever happens next I want you all to know I am currently in a good place mentally and at ease with the situation.
That’s it from me. But life has been good. Very good.
Thank you to my mum and the rest of my family for everything. Thank you to my friends for being amazing. Thank you to my medical team for the hard work and effort they’ve continually they’ve put towards me. And thank you everyone else for sharing this wonderful journey with me.
I love you all x
The post was accompanied by a picture of a smiling Stephen offering a thumbs up.
At the time of writing, donations were pouring in to Stephen’s JustGiving page. He has currently raised over £840,000.
