Kate Brandon, 33, from Bristol, smashed the target (the fundraising page is pictured, right) in just two days, meaning her husband Mike can join a new clinical trial in Pennsylvania. Mike, 31, is battling acute lymphoblastic leukaemia for the second time after the disease returned more aggressive than ever. After exhausting all treatment options in the UK, his only hope is to travel abroad to receive pioneering stem cell therapy - at a cost of £400,000. In just two days since their story hit the news, donations have flooded in from nearly 21,000 people around the world. Today, after the target was reached, Mrs Brandon spoke of her thanks to the thousands of strangers who have donated. She wrote: 'Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us to reach our fundraising goal. Mike and I have been overwhelmed by the love and support we have received. With your help we now have HOPE.'

If you're falling asleep at your desk mid-afternoon, energy-boosting foods can help, says London-based nutritionist Rick Hay. The protein, carbohydrates and vitamins in a banana and almond butter snack will energise you and improve your mood. And swapping bread, pasta and rice for sweet potatoes - which release sugar into the bloodstream more slowly - could lead to a steadier stream of energy throughought the day. Here, he reveals his top eight energy-boosting foods, including (from left to right) nuts, spinach, maca powder, peanut butter, sweet potato and salmon.

Jake Andrews (left) and Jordan Lotter (inset and right) formed a close bond after both were diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in April last year. Both were treated for cancer at the University College London Hospital. But after forming a bond as close as 'brothers' Jordan's health declined rapidly and Jake found himself sitting beside his hospital bed having to say goodbye. He then read an emotional tribute to his best friend at his funeral saying: 'I have to remind myself that at least now he no longer has to endure the pain of this world. We must find peace knowing that he is still a light in our hearts.'

Laura Monks, 31, from Wigan, spent two years blaming herself when her son Rueben was stillborn, believing her own body had let him die. When she became pregnant again she was terrified, fearing the same outcome. But after two years she began to question the actions of medics caring for her son. An investigation revealed the hospital trust who delivered him made serious mistakes - and she was awarded £40,000 in compensation. Now, Ms Monks and her partner Peter Winrow, 35, have decided to share the heartbreaking picture of their stillborn son in order to urge other mothers who fear there is a problem with their baby to 'scream from the rooftops'. She said: 'I want all other mothers to be aware that they need to ask questions and insist on answers. When something goes wrong, we have a right to know why.'

Sandra Avants (left with her husband Arthur), who had battled Multiple Sclerosis for 44 years, posted a typed farewell letter with a photo of herself and her beloved pet dog (right) on a cliff-top walkway in Dorset, where she had been a familiar face. In the note the 68-year-old explained that the excruciating pain caused by her illness had 'won its final battle' and asked loved ones not to be sad.

Nutritionist Emma Brown tells FEMAIL how confusion over portion sizes arises because there are no official guidelines. Here she reveals how much you should really eat of any food. Clockwise from top left: A single biscuit is your limit; eat just a small amount of steak; a matchbox-sized piece of cheese is enough; a packet of crisps is fine now and again; a generous piece of salmon is advised; but you should only eat half a scone.

Last week air steward Rodrigo Alves, 32, who is originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil, but now lives in London, was hospitalised with necrosis after undergoing his seventh nose job. Now, he has revealed that he will undergo yet another procedure after his body rejected the implant - but this time at the taxpayers' expense. The 10 hour £50,000 operation is expected to involve removing cartilage from his rib area and rebuilding his nose from scratch after previous operations have left him with hardly any bone and tissue.

Doctors believed the unnamed girl, from Hong Kong, had a cyst on her eye causing it to swell. But when they raised her eyelid to take a look - a rigid contact lens spontaneously flew out. It was then that the girl's mother suddenly remembered she had lost an orthokeratology lens two years before. This was a lens given to her to wear overnight to reshape her cornea - the transparent layer at the front of the eye - to stop her short-sightedness getting worse.

Thanks to new electronic glasses, a fifth grader who has been legally blind his entire life recently had to the chance to see his mother for the first time. Marquita Hackley (pictured right and center inset) and her 12-year-old son, Christopher Ward Jr. (pictured left and center inset), traveled to Washington, D.C. from their home in Forest, Virginia a few weeks ago to try eSight, a new wearable technology that allows people with vision loss to actually see. The little boy was born with optic nerve hypoplasia, which means that before birth, his optic nerve never fully developed. Like any mother, Hackley became emotional when she was able to witness her son try on the eSight device and 'really see for the first time in his 12 years of life.' 'The very first thing he did was turn to me and say, 'Oh, Mommy! There you are!' Hackley told ABC News. 'And then to hear him say, 'I saw my mom, and she was very pretty,' was so heartwarming. And aside from pretty, just the fact he could even see me meant the whole world to me.'

Alex Lewis (pictured bottom left with fiancé Lucy and son Sam) was left fighting for his life after a common cold triggered a strep A infection, blood poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. Doctors gave him a three per cent chance of survival, but the now 35-year-old, from Hampshire, battled against the odds to make a remarkable recovery. Over the past two years he has endured countless gruelling operations to rebuild his face and learned how to walk again with prosthetics. Now, his extraordinary story will be told in a new documentary which begins just days after he was almost eaten alive. The show tracks his rehabilitation, during which he had to have multiple operations to reconstruct his face and re-learn to walk with two prosthetic legs. But it also reveals how his young son struggled to come to terms with his drastically altered appearance. As Mr Lewis admits in the documentary: 'I think if I was a three-and-a-half-year-old and I was looking at my father in this condition, then I would find it very, very odd and very strange. I miss that time with Sam and that closeness an awful lot, it's the one thing I think that gets to me the most. I'm making the biggest effort I can to look and be like the old me and try and rebuild that closeness between us.' And despite his hideous ordeal, Mr Lewis says he could not be happier - and describes the last two years as the 'the most tragic but brilliant' of his life. 'Our whole life has been turned upside down but for me, there's a lot of clarity. I feel I've experienced life and death and I am just so lucky to be here.'

Seven-year-old Pin and Pan, from Thailand, were born with their own heads, torsos, and arms but conjoined at the waist (top right). With only two legs between them, they are forced them to walk around on their hands (left).Pin has control of one leg and Pan controls the other, and the pair have learned to walk, dress, eat - and even ride a tricycle (bottom right) - as one. Doctors have raised the possibility of the sisters being separated - though they are not sure this is possible. But the girls' bond is so strong that they say they want to stay joined together forever. Their grandparents say they are 'normal, happy' children. 'They love singing, eating ice cream, helping each other with dressing up and giggling together,' their grandmother, Noknoi Pongchumnan, said.

Oliver Bales, 24, from Portsmouth, is now more than half the man he used to be after getting fed up with being ridiculed because of his large waist - which measured more than 5ft. The once-39st rail worker (left) has managed to turn his life around and today crowned Slimming World's Greatest Loser of 2016 - after shedding the equivalent weight of a baby killer whale. Oliver, who now weighs 13st 13Ibs (right), has a new-found spring in his step and hopes to run a marathon, do a triathlon and learn to scuba dive.

Klara Dollan, 23, from Cricklewood, give birth to a healthy 7lb baby girl. But when she started to have cramps early that morning she presumed she was simply having a painful period. With no morning sickness, back pain or visible baby bump, there was nothing to hint that Klara was pregnant.

Tiara Rain DeHaan-Palubiak, 22, became anorexic after she started dieting at university and her relationship with food spiraled out of control. The student, from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, pictured left and center when she was anorexic and right at a healthy weight after beginning her recovery, lost 45 pounds in just nine months after her obsession with calorie counting saw her spiral into a deadly eating disorder. She was helped onto the path to recovery after an intervention by a campus counselor.

When her waters broke, Sophie Webster called the maternity unit at Colchester General Hospital to warn them to expect her immediately. But she was told there was no room there or at any other maternity facility in the region. She was transported by ambulance more than 60 miles to Norwich (right), bypassing closer hospitals in Essex and Suffolk because they were full. Miss Webster gave birth to son Jake, weighing a healthy 8lbs 10oz, a few hours later (left). She said: 'We obviously couldn't go very fast but we got there at about 9.30am and I had him at 12.53pm.'

Emma Symonds, 34, from Gloucester, says her four-year-old son Logan told her he wanted to be a girl when he was just 18 months old. Appearing on This Morning, she told presenters Holly and Phil how stopping her son dressing the way he wanted to made him angry. Viewers watching the show were divided in their opinions and took to Twitter to air their views on the controversial topic. (Pictured: Emma Symonds, 34, on This Morning. Right, her son Logan dressed as a girl, with his brother Alfie. Inset: Tweets about the family's appearance)

The babies, who each had their own heart, arms, legs and ears, were born weighing 2lbs 6oz at a hospital in Rajkot, Gujarat, eastern India. Tragically, doctors confirmed they only lived for six minutes following their birth on Friday. It is believed the babies were cephalopagus Siamese twins, born with their heads fused together but much of their bodies were separate. The birth of this type of conjoined twins - who develop after a fertilized egg cell fails to divide fully - is extremely rare. The doctor added that such a condition can normally be diagnosed within the first trimester of a woman's pregnancy. But the woman had not been for any check ups during her pregnancy, which is normally the case in India due to severe poverty.

Nearly 13,000 operations and 113,000 appointments have been postponed due to today's strike, which is the first in NHS history to affect emergency care units. Thousands of staff are protesting about the new junior doctor contracts the Government is trying to impose - with senior doctors and nurses left to provide all care. Despite the huge disruption to care, a poll found 57 per cent of the public support the doctors' cause - while a quarter oppose it. And today many patients frustrated by cancelled appointments and operations vented their anger. 'Miss G', from Kent, was angry her grandmother's operation was cancelled due to the strike - leaving her in agony. Posting on Twitter, she wrote: 'My nan has had her operation on her hip cancelled. She is in pain, drove past hospital on way to work, doctors are laughing at the gate. In another tweet, she added: 'Nana be strong, I know you are hurting, it's not your fault Doctors want to play political point scoring. I thought doctors cared!' The backlash comes after the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (right) insisted today doctors are solely responsible for any harm that may come to patients as a result of the first all-out NHS strike.

Some bathroom cabinet staples are such household names it's hard to imagine there's an alternative. With the help of medical experts, we show you cheapskate versions, saving as much as £118 - £952.51 a year.

The 33-year-old man, known as Zhang Cheng, of Leshan, a city in China's south-western Sichuan Province, let the mass grow so big it weighed 2st 5lbs (33lb or 15kg) (left) as he believed it could be treated with traditional remedies. After it swelled to the size of a beach ball doctors said the mass was pressing on his internal organs and his bowels - which could potentially be fatal. He had the growth removed as part of a six-hour operation (right) and is now recovering in intensive care. His sister told local news outlets that before the operation he was eternally single single as women were put off by his 'pregnant' stomach.

Make up artist Heidi Hamoud, from Melbourne, Australia, has revealed the secret to covering acne is using a good primer and a green concealer that works to counteract the skin's redness (inset). The talented vlogger applied a green concealer to the cheeks, chin, nose and forehead before applying foundation over the top, and the before (left) and after (right) photos show the simple trick is extremely effective in achieving a flawless finish.

It should have been a time of sheer joy for Irrum Jetha (pictured with her daughter) - a first child and the start of life as a family with her husband Adam (both pictured right) - and when she clutched her newborn baby to her chest, she felt the surge of love that any mother would. Unknown to Irrum, 34, from Middlesex, however, something was wrong - so wrong, that the euphoria would soon turn to tragedy.

Dan Reddington, 75, from Worcestershire, maintains he developed electrosensitivity six months ago. In addition to the TV, he says using a computer or even turning the central heating on brings him out in a red rash. He also claims he must even avoid electrical shops to keep his symptoms at bay, which flare up any time he gets too close to electrical items. Doctors have apparently been left baffled by the rare condition - which is not officially recognised by medics.s a result, Mr Reddington has resorted to finding his own cures in order to watch TV - including wearing a T-shirt with eye holes cut out, donning a welder's mask or a face mask lined with foil.

Twin Teddy Houlston (pictured right next to his brother Noah) only lived for 100 minutes before becoming Britain's youngest organ donor two years ago. He saved eight lives then and countless others after a surge in people joined the register. Teddy (pictured left with mother Jess Evans and Noah) was born with anencephaly, a rare, fatal condition that prevents the normal development of the brain and the bones of the skull. His family, from Cardiff, including father Mike Houlston, shared his story and appeared on This Morning (inset) to encourage people to join the organ donor register which has since seen a massive spike in the number of people registered.

Jennifer Hiles, 28, from South Dakota, suffers from facial arterial venous malformation (AVM) - a malformation of veins and capillaries - which has left her face disfigured and almost killed her on multiple occasions. AVM causes the veins to dissipate, causing them to tangle and, when it flares up, spread like the 'branches of a tree'. The condition causes pain, skin breakdown, overgrowth of tissue (left and inset), and can even cause heart failure. She is soon to have surgery to have the tangles removed from her face. Until then, doctors have put balloons under her skin to stretch it, so they have excess to cover up the scars when they cut out the growths. Mrs Hiles, pictured right with her two daughters Marlina and Kiah, believes the operation will change her life. She said: 'I just want to be able to spend all of my time with my kids without people looking at me and calling me names. I just want to not be shy and be who I am without worrying about what people will think. AVM is so hard to deal with - it makes my gums bleed and has completely eroded the bone in my teeth, if they fall out I could bleed to death.'

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound or 'HiFu', kills the tumour alone by using a thin beam of energy to heat up cancer cells to 90C. This leaves the prostate, and vital surrounding tissues, intact. Incompetence is a big issue for many of the 47,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in Britain every year. Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman has been diagnosed with the illness.