Brain cancer: Nathan and Lucy's story

When Lucy Austin runs for Cancer Research she does it in memory of her son who lost his fight against brain cancer aged six. She tells Alex Atkinson her story and why she wants you to sign up to Race For Life

Lucy clearly remembers the day Nathan's tumour was discovered - October 2001, three days before his second birthday.

'He was walking very unsteadily so I took him to the doctors. He thought I was just being a worrying mum as Nathan was my first, but I knew something was wrong. I suppose it's just mother's intuition. So I took him to another doctor who said it was probably nothing, but he sent him for a scan just to be sure. The MRI scan came back showing a tumour.

'I went through every range of emotion; grief, anger, sadness, because when you hear the words 'brain tumour' you just automatically think death.'

Nathan was transferred that night to the Oxford Radcliffe, a specialist hospital. It gave Lucy and Nathan the chance to meet other families and children who were going through the same treatment and to see some of the success stories gave them hope.

'It was very scary though. I was only 21 at the time and Nathan was my first baby. The consultant explained everything to us, he was very helpful. He said it was good we'd got him diagnosed now, any later and he would only have had a few weeks or months to live.'

As Nathan was under three he wasn't old enough to withstand the radiotherapy, so he was treated with chemotherapy for six months before surgeons operated to remove as much of the tumour as they could. Nathan then endured maintenance chemo until he turned three and qualified for radiotherapy.

Nathan went into remission for two years after this; he started school and the family began to re-adjust to a normal life outside of the hospital.