Aussies give five-year-old's cancer fight a $300k boost

More than $300,000 has been raised for a five-year-old NSW boy forced to fly across the globe to receive life-saving cancer treatment.

A Current Affair was introduced to five-year-old Teddy and parents Beth and Robbie on Christmas Eve, as they pleaded with the government to cut red tape so he could receive urgent treatment in the US. 

Teddy had been diagnosed with a highly aggressive, grade-four brain tumour called medulloblastoma just weeks earlier, and had already undergone surgery to remove it.

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But his specialists believed proton radiation therapy, only available overseas, was the best treatment course moving forward.

However, getting the five-year-old approved for funding to receive the treatment was a six-week process, made even longer by government offices closing over the holiday period.

"Children with life-threatening illnesses, like Teddy, don't have six weeks to wait," Beth said.

Thankfully, generous Aussies opened their hearts to the family, raising more than $300,000 to ensure Teddy's family could afford the treatment in Jacksonville, Florida.

Mum Beth was emotional as we caught up with her five weeks after the family's initial appeal.

"All the people that watched on A Current Affair, we are just so thankful you've changed Teddy's life, like the generosity of random strangers and the generosity of our beautiful community and our family," Beth said.

"I don't know if they know what a life-changing thing they've done for our family, and we just want to say thank you so much.

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"It was just the most beautiful feeling and something that I'll never, ever forget seeing those numbers is just so overwhelming."

Teddy is finishing off proton radiation treatment in Jacksonville, after which he will return home for four to six months of chemotherapy at home.

"He's so good. He is. It's so cheeky. He is the life of that little hospital," Beth said.

"He makes people laugh. He's, he is doing really well."

The family continues to plead for the government to expedite the funding approval process for treatment overseas, or better yet, establish proton radiation therapy facilities here in Australia.

Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on the construction of a facility in South Australia to house a proton therapy machine.

But last year the SA government abandoned the contract with concerns the American supplier wouldn't deliver.

Watch the full video in the player above.