YouTube star Dan Thomas loses cancer fight

Dan Thomas, from Dudley, had been sharing the emotional ups and downs of his cancer journey to widespread support from more than 150,000 subscribers.

The news was broken by his family – his parents, two brothers and new wife – on the channel where he posted his videos under the name of PeeWeeToms.

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The 32-year-old's positive attitude touched many – even Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev who sent him a message from the International Space Station.

The family thanked his audience for their support and announced that they would be posting videos on the channel in the future – including some 'surprises' Dan had prepared in advance.

His brother, professional drummer Matt Thomas said: “Honestly, we really want to thank you, our entire family. You’ve been so supportive of Dan’s journey. We know how much it’s helped. Words can’t express how we all feel right now but I hope that we can continue our journey with you.”

Dan was diagnosed after an unusual lump started growing on his back in 2015. Originally diagnosed with shingles, he was eventually given a diagnosis of sarcomatoid carcinoma. Medics told him there were only 16 recorded cases. More than 30 tumours were removed all around his body by medics at London's Royal Marsden Hospital.

Thomas chronicled his treatments, hopes and dreams but in a post in April this year, captioned 'Cancer has won, game over' he revealed the disease had spread too far for further surgery and that his fight was over. It received more than two million views.

Forced to give up his job through illness, he started a GoFundMe page to raise money partly for treatment, partly for travel, so he could visit other cancer sufferers and give them encouragement. He raised more than £10,000 before being given his terminal diagnosis.

But he continued his blogs, with his latest videos having hundreds of thousands of people tuned in to support him.

He also recently married his partner Becca Thomas, weeks before he died.

Over the past two weeks, the software developer told viewers he had become too sick for chemotherapy and was in a hospice. In his final vlog, posted last Monday(24th), he struggled with exhaustion as he talked about how his cancer had spread rapidly, growing tumours all over his body and making everything painful.

He said: "It’s upsetting as well, because there’s things I want to do that I’ll never be able to do now. It’s horrible to explain to the outside world how you feel. It’s almost impossible to show it."

He told viewers that his family members would be updating everyone from then on, as he was too weak to do so himself. Over the past 10 months, he vlogged under the hashtag #dontgiveindontgiveup, also raising money for research by selling hoodies bearing the same logo.

In his last video before he died, the vlogger said to to his viewers: 'see you later, ta-ta, bye bye'.

Since Dan's last post his family have posted two other videos - one confirming the his passing and another to invite viewers to Dan's funeral on October 8 at 3.30pm, which takes place at St Paul's Church in Walliscote Road, Weston-Super-Mare.

His father told viewers: “Between us, we want you to know that we want to keep encouraging you to keep going on, whatever place you’re at, whatever the state of your life and your family because that’s what Dan would do. That’s what he did. And if he’s got a legacy for everyone, I would say that’s probably it: Just keep going, do what you can do, and enjoy every minute of it. Because he did.”