A mum and daughter are battling cancer together after their diagnoses came just weeks apart. North Shields mum Cindy Walker found a lump on the leg of her daughter Lily the day before her third birthday.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer herself only two months earlier, the mum was already aware she had a cancer gene which could have been passed to her child. A week after the lump was found, Cindy received the news she was dreading - Lily also had cancer, known as rhabdomyosarcoma.
Cindy, 35, was completely unaware she had a cancer gene until a distant cousin from Canada - who she'd never met - contacted her to urge her to get checked. Explaining to the Chronicle, Cindy said: "My dad had already had cancer, and he was tested again for the gene, which he does have.
"My sister and I were then told we could go for yearly MRI scans. My sister went and she was fine, then I went and was asked to go back. On July 21 this year, they told me they'd found breast cancer on my first MRI scan and that I needed a lumpectomy."
Cindy went ahead with the operation, but she later got an infection and has had an open wound for around six weeks which still isn't fully healed. Once the wound has been treated, Cindy will begin her chemotherapy before undergoing a double mastectomy.
"That's because of the gene," Cindy said. "They basically told me I'd get cancer again, so told me I might as well not get breast cancer again."
As Cindy, who also has an 11-year-old step-daughter called Emily, continued to cope with her own diagnosis, her world was again turned upside down a day before her daughter Lily's third birthday. She said: "My husband Anthony, 37, was putting some knee pads on Lily so she could go out on her bike and he found a lump on her leg.
"Obviously, because of my cancer gene I believed it was a tumour straight away and decided to get her to the doctor."
Appointments were made at Cramlington Hospital, before Lily was transferred to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary, where she was scanned and a cancerous mass was revealed on her leg on September 11. Cindy said: "Since then, there's been test after test, she's on her third round of chemo now.
"She has that every week and she will also have to have an ovary taken out for the future, that will be frozen. They can also test her ovaries to see which egg has the cancer gene, so when she's older, has a partner and wants to have a baby, she can use the egg which doesn't have the cancer gene, which is really clever."
Lily will also have to get her right calf muscle removed, meaning her walking will be impaired, and a muscle from her back will be put into the leg. She will also have to have more aggressive chemotherapy further down the line.
Cindy added: "She has good days, she has bad days. She's lost all of her hair, she's got a tube running from her nose to her tummy as she won't take medicines. She's just a poorly child. She also has a permanent tube running through an artery to her heart so they can take blood and give her medicines.
"They can do a lot with it, but she's took really well to it. She just gets poorly from the chemo, she's just a sick, poorly kid. Anthony is just being so strong for all of the family."
Following the pair's diagnoses, the mum is now urging women to check their breasts for lumps and also wants parents to check their children, too. "With me I don't think I would have went to the doctors straight away if I'd found a lump and hadn't already had cancer", Cindy said.
"I probably would have left it, thinking it's just a boil or an abscess. But it's so important to get it checked out to be safe."
A GoFundMe page has also been set up for the family where donations can be made.
