A young Scots mum diagnosed with a rare cancer was terrified her children would grow up without her after losing her own mum to the disease aged 12.
Tianna Campbell, 24, was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma at the start of the coronavirus pandemic after initially feeling unwell in October 2019.
Having lost her own mum to cancer in 2009 when she was just 12, she was devastated when she feared history would repeat itself.
The mum-of-two, from Edinburgh, had been suffering from breathlessness after she had been in hospital with pneumonia.
Medics had sent her for a CT scan when they found a 12cm tumour behind her breast bone.
She told the Record: “In October 2019 I was in hospital with pneumonia and ever since then my breathing wasn't right.
"I couldn't walk a certain amount without being out of breath. It was affecting my job as I work in childcare.
“I had a second CT scan in March 2020 and then after it I got a phone call asking me to go in.”
“They sat me down and told me they had found a tumour and it was cancer.
"I never ever thought I would get cancer. I thought it might be a chest infection - but never cancer.”
Mum Tianna was terrified when medics broke the news and feared she would die.
She said: “When I got told I didn't cry or anything. It wasn't until I'd left the hospital and got in my car that I became upset.
“I phoned my dad - he lives in Spain - and I said 'dad I've got cancer, I'm going to die' and I started crying.
"I watched my mum go through cancer so I had always thought, I've watched someone else suffer from this so it won't happen to me."
But brave Tianna said her focus shifted to her children Riley, four, and Logan, two and she was determined to fight the disease so she could watch them grow up unlike her own mum.
She continued: “When I was first given the news, I just thought, I’m going to die. Then I looked at my boys and and just told myself ‘I’m not going anywhere. They are my purpose and I’m going to live to see them grow up’”.
“I think if I didn't have them I wouldn't have fought as hard. Because I'd grown up without a mum I didn't want them to.
Tianna had six rounds of chemotherapy and a further 15 radiotherapies before being told she was in remission on December 4, 2020.
She has now planned a 10,000ft jump out of a plane to raise cash for the Teenage Cancer Trust after the charity supported her and her two children during her treatment.
To donate to the fundraiser click here.
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