WHEN mum Lisa Joslin discovered desperately ill youngster Ashya King was taken from hospital by his parents, sparking an international manhunt, she froze.

Her little boy Jack was diagnosed with the same brain tumour as Ashya (pictured below), an aggressive medulloblastoma, and was battling for his life on the same ward at Southampton General Hospital.

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As Ashya’s parents Brett and Naghmeh insisted on having £75,000 proton beam treatment, unavailable on the NHS, to fight the five-year-old’s cancer, Lisa panicked about whether the NHS protocol of radiotherapy and chemotherapy used by every children’s cancer centre in the UK was safe for her youngest son.

This week the family of Ashya revealed he is now cancer free following the alternative treatment in Prague, saying he would “not have survived under NHS care” and “leaving him in the NHS would have been far more cruel”.

But for these mums with youngsters battling brain cancer, it is simple – the NHS have saved their children’s lives.

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Mum-of-two Lisa (Pictured with Jack) said: “All us mums under the care of the team at Southampton General Hospital feel strongly about the way the hospital has been portrayed. I’m really worried the public may lose confidence in the NHS protocol, especially parents of newly diagnosed children not knowing where to turn.

“But I can say the team at Southampton are my angels, like gods. They have given me the most precious gift, the gift of life for my son.”

Lisa knows first-hand just how devastating it is to hear your child has cancer. It’s a word she cannot even say.

Her youngest son Jack was always energetic: climbing on everything, zooming down his road in Chandler’s Ford on his scooter, riding his bike, playing football and street dancing.

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But in August 2013 that fun-loving life cruelly changed. He was diagnosed with the same fast-growing life-threatening cancerous tumour as Ashya, which left untreated can spread elsewhere in the brain and spinal cord.

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Lisa said: “We were given a 70 to 80 per cent survival rate. It is such a dark part of your life. Your life almost ends for you when you are told that. When you are told your child has cancer, you crumble inside.

“Your whole world seems to have fallen down. You see your child laying there and you can’t do anything about it.”

Two days after first going into hospital, Jack had a ten-hour operation to remove the tumour.

Lisa, said: “After his operation I couldn’t recognise him. He couldn’t move. He had a drain coming out the top of his head, bandages all around. He couldn’t see properly. He couldn’t lift his head or speak.”

Just a week later doctors had to operate again on the same part of the brain for a further eight hours.

He then had to begin the NHS-recommended treatment which was a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to fight the cancer.

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Undergoing the gruelling treatment, the pair made friends with Claire Rickards and 13-year-old daughter Rosie. Rosie was diagnosed with a brain tumour in September 2013 normally only seen in children under four.

It was at the time both children were enduring chemotherapy, the mums saw headlines about the plight of the Kings, criticising the NHS-recommended treatment, instead taking their little boy abroad to get alternative treatment.

Proton beam therapy delivers a more targeted form of radiotherapy whereas radiotherapy blasts the surrounding area as well.

According to medics there is no evidence that protons are more effective at curing medulloblastoma. Any debate is around the later effects of the radiation.

Lisa said: “He had the same cancer, in the same ward, the same syndrome afterwards. It really really upset me seeing it on the news.”

Mum of three Claire continued: “At the time both kids were in hospital having chemo and we actually questioned whether we had done the right thing.

“Our consultant was very good, took us in a room and said ‘right girls, questions?’.

Lisa added: “We were told with the types of brain tumours our children had, the treatment was as good as the proton beam. They said with medulloblastoma, radiotherapy is the best option because the spinal cord needs to be included in the radiation field.

“We had to trust them.”

That trust paid off when they got the best news imaginable when both children were told they were in remission.

Lisa, who got the news in September last year, said: |“I wanted to come down my road and it to be full of balloons screaming ‘wahey.’”

Now Jack is a different child. Today he is rolling around with his best friend, dog Freddie, and is even back at Hiltingbury Junior School.

Rosie, who is now regis tered blind after her ordeal, got the good news she was in remission last summer and can’t stop smiling.

She said: “I had a T-shirt saying ‘I’ve Kicked Cancer’s Butt’ and Mum had one saying ‘My Daughter Kicked Cancer’s Butt.’”

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Both mums know it will be a long time before they can say their children are cured.

Lisa said: “There is a long way for both of us to go before we can say that the cancer will not return. They both have to have scans every four months and you always hope it is going to be clear but we know not to be complacent because the cancer can return.

"From what’s been in the papers and on the news, if Jack was diagnosed today I would insist on proton beam because there has been a lot of scaremongering, but we now have a future and it is thanks to the amazing team at our world-class NHS children’s cancer treatment centre.”