FOR days on end young Chelsea Raybould cannot touch her children – including her newborn – because the chemotherapy she is undergoing is so intense the sweat from her hands could be toxic enough to burn them.

The 24-year-old was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in her chest when she was 30 weeks pregnant.

It was, she says, like being hit by a whirlwind that turned her life upside down.

It all started on Friday morning, June 26 after returning home from dropping her Son Finley at school.

Within hours she was in hospital, within days she had been diagnosed with a tumour between her heart and lungs, within 11 days she had given birth to a tiny premature baby – Lacey Mae - and the fight to save her own life had begun.

Looking back on it now she sees herself being blown along by a storm wind with no control.

“It’s just been crazy. I have had no say in my life for three months. I just want to get better and have a normal life again.”

Instead Chelsea, from Quarry Bank, goes to hospital every 14 days for a five-day course of chemotherapy that is so toxic she has been warned not to touch her children for days afterwards.

When Chelsea felt breathless and had shoulder and chest pains after getting back from school she called the doctor, who sent her straight to Russells Hall Hospital where X-rays and CT scans showed up a dark mass in her chest.

The biopsy came back on the Wednesday. It was a tumour caused by a cancer so aggressive that she was back in hospital the same night and in a packed room of experts ‘telling me what my life was going to be like for the next few months’.

“It was devastating. I was thirty weeks pregnant. The doctors said they had to act immediately. They said the cancer was stopping Lacey-Mae developing properly.”

Chelsea was given steroids to help strengthen Lacey-Mae’s lungs and four days later she was delivered by C-section ten weeks early on July 6.

She weighed in at 2lbs 4ozs, a little bit heavier than a bag of sugar.

Lacey-Mae went home after five weeks to be looked after by Chelsea’s partner, James Cartwright, who gave up his job as a mechanic, and Chelsea’s mum and husband, Stephanie and Glyn Bullock.

In the meantime the battle to save Chelsea’s life had begun in earnest, with exhausting rounds of chemotherapy.

“The chemo is OK,” she said. “It’s the side effects. You can lose your appetite, feel really really tired. It feels like you have been hit by a bus sometimes.’

Slowly but surely the family are clawing their way back to some normality.

Lacey-Mae now weighs over 6lbs. Finley, who himself underwent a series of blood transfusions when he was a toddler, is reassured because Chelsea tells him: “The doctors who cured you are making mummy better too.”

And they are.

After five rounds of chemo Chelsea got a phone call from her consultant to tell her the tumour had halved in size, from 8cms to 4.

“I burst into tears. It reassured me that this treatment is worth it. I could see the positive.”

Chelsea’s friend Sarah Pearson has set up a Gofundme page to raise money so that the family can have a special holiday once Chelsea is well again. “They have been through so much.”

“I just want a normal life back,” said Chelsea. ‘Where I am not spending all my time in hospital.”

If you want to donate go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/chelseas-smiles.

So far the fund has topped £1,200 towards its target of £3,000.

“The money has come from the community and from people I don’t even know. There was someone from Australia. I just want to say thank you to everyone. A holiday is something to really look forward to.”