'I felt such relief' - Telford comedian hits fundraising goal for life-changing surgery at West Midlands show

Ricky Balshaw, 38, from Telford, has cerebral palsy and has been fundraising for surgery, which will stop him from becoming paralysed. 

Ricky surpassed his goal of £15k after a comedy show at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall earlier this month on February 2. 

The night's host Wayne Beese, 44, got up on stage after Ricky's performance to explain to the audience that Ricky was missing £1,410 to fund his surgery.

Wayne put in £110 himself and in just 20 minutes, the audience had surpassed Ricky's goal. 

Ricky had already left the venue but when he received the good news he pulled over to record a video and thank the crowd for their support.

Ricky said: "I felt such relief in that moment."

Over the last few weeks I had noticed the amount of money coming into the GoFundMe had kind of stalled.

"I think this was just because all the people who are close to me or fans of me had already given what they could. I had almost started to panic about where I could find the remaining money.

"So, Wayne pulling this without me knowing was so amazing, because I definitely wouldn't have allowed it if I'd known!"

Ricky was born with cerebral palsy and had surgery on his spine when he was 10 years old to help improve his mobility. After years of walking, a scan revealed that the four points on his spine that the previous surgery had fused together were grinding down.

Ricky said: "It's a degenerative issue so it just keeps getting worse day after day. If I were to fall on it wrong or even if it continued to grind down I could be paralysed in a matter of hours.

"This is definitely more of an issue for me as my cerebral palsy means I'm not as stable when I walk, so the chances of me falling are higher."

Ricky explained that the NHS offers the surgery but that the waiting list is between 18 months and two years. 

He said: "I just really didn't want to run the risk of paralysis so I had been raising money through my GoFundMe for private surgery. Ricky was able to raise the £9,000 needed for an initial procedure, which he had at the beginning of December last year.

Ricky said: "During this surgery, doctors were able to fix three out of the four fusion points but the fourth had cracks in the fusion's structure so that needs a secondary surgery."That's when I started to raise the further £6,000 for the next surgery I need."

'It was just incredible'

Thanks to Wayne, Ricky was able to reach his goal and now awaits a date for his second surgery. 

Ricky said: "Now I've got that, I have called the hospital and they should be back with a date for the surgery by the end of the week."

Wayne said: "I had a quick look on the day of the gig and saw Ricky was close to his target, but that the donations had slowed.

"We had more than 400 people in for the show on Sunday night and Sutton Coldfield is regarded as a fairly affluent area so I thought an on-stage public appeal might at the very worst get him a couple of hundred pounds closer to his target.

"I didn't feel comfortable asking people to donate cash if I wasn't doing the same, so I put £110 in to take it up to a round figure of £13,700 and leave £1,300 left to raise."

In the 20 minute interval that followed, Ricky received £1,385 in donations to take him to and above his target.

"It was just incredible and I'd like to place on record again my huge thanks to everyone who donated," he said.