HOW on earth do you tell your children that mummy is dying?

It’s a question no 36-year-old should have to contemplate, but it’s one that Hayley Ryan wrestles with every day.

Just weeks ago the mum-of-two was told the shattering news that the cancer she hoped she had beaten was back – and there is currently no cure.

She has been given between nine months and two years to live.

The devastating news came just days after Hayley enjoyed one of the happiest days of her life as she ‘married’ her husband Jason for a second time – when they renewed their vows and threw a huge party for family and friends.

Since then she has spent each day penning a mountain of love letters to Jason and their beloved son Joe, 11, and five-year-old daughter Lois – terrified that she will be forgotten and determined not to let it happen.

“I want them to know everything – the little memories that just spring up, the things that mummy did when she was young, when she was at school, everything,” said Hayley.

“I now make little videos while I’m cooking their favourite dinners or when I’m baking with my daughter or reading bedtime stories – I want them to have those memories forever.”

It’s a situation that for most would be too devastating to bear, but Hayley is determined to keep life as normal as possible for her children while continuing to make happy memories as a family.

She’s also passionate about doing what she can to raise awareness of the disease that she fears will cruelly cut short her life, and the desperate need for more research to help develop better, kinder treatments for cancer.

So much so that this weekend, she will join four of her closest friends to take on Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life Pretty Muddy event on Southampton Common – united in a mission with thousands of other women in the city to hit cancer where it hurts.

Among the group is her best friend Helen Parker who has spent the past 15 years working in the field of cancer research. As a scientist working in the labs at the Cancer Research UK Southampton Centre, she knows only too well how cancer can wreak devastation on people’s lives but she’s also acutely aware of the positive impact every research breakthrough is having.

It was in November 2015 that Hayley – then aged 34 – learned she had an aggressive form of breast cancer, four days after having a nagging lump removed from her left breast.

Hayley said: “I wasn’t in the slightest bit worried. I was only 34, and fit and healthy. I was a member of a running club, I didn’t drink and never smoked – I hadn’t done anything negative to my body at all.

“They asked me to go back in and see the surgeon but even then I didn’t really panic. Jason came with me that day and as we walked into the room I saw a breast care nurse. I sat down and they told me they were sorry – but it was triple negative breast cancer, a very aggressive form of the disease.

“I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t breathe. I think I had a panic attack and they left the room to allow me to try and calm down.

“It was like it was happening to someone else. At one point I started laughing hysterically because I had always had the worlds’ tiniest breasts so to now have cancer there, it just felt so ironic to me.”

Having broken the news to her mum, Hayley decided to tell everyone she loved that same day and set about contacting family and friends.

She said: “I couldn’t bear the idea of causing so much sadness to so many people I loved. It was unbearable, so I just sat down and sent messages to everyone I knew.”

Hayley began chemotherapy treatment in the week before Christmas but was determined to carry on working in her job as a teaching innovation manager at Southampton City College.

She said: “It was really important to me because I had to maintain that sense of normality. I have always worked and loved my job. I wanted to keep everything as normal as possible for my children. It was very hard for them to see me so ill.”

Hayley endured a tough course of chemotherapy, losing her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. She later underwent a full mastectomy before a round of radiotherapy.

In July last year the gruelling treatment finally came to an end.

Hayley said: “My oncologist told me to go and live my life and we did – but something in me knew it was going to come back.

“I have always known deep in my heart from the minute I was diagnosed that this would be the thing that killed me.

“I packed my life, all our lives, full of everything from that moment. We had daytrips, a family holiday to Exeter, took the children to Disneyland Paris and to the Eiffel Tower where Jason and I had got engaged.

“I needed to find a way to show Jason how much I loved him – he was my rock and I wouldn’t have got through it without him – and so I decided to marry him again!

Having originally wed in the Bahamas, the couple decided to renew their wedding vows in April this year, throwing a huge party in Southampton for all their family and friends.

Hayley said: “We had such an amazing day, the happiest time with everyone we love so dearly. It was a celebration of being together, with everyone we cared about.”

But their happiness was short-lived when just days later Hayley visited her oncologist, concerned about a rash on her breast scar which she had initially thought could be psoriasis – and she was told the shattering news she had secondary cancer in her skin.

“They have told me that my cancer is incurable,” said Hayley who has now given up work following her prognosis.

“But I feel so fortunate to be in the right city to have had the treatment I have, right on my doorstep. And I feel very strongly that young women, even those who are seemingly healthy and take good care of themselves, can get cancer too.

“Nobody is immune – it’s indiscriminate. I had no idea this was the case and I want to do all I can to make other people sit up and take notice – and make them realise that if they find something suspicious they need to act fast.”

Hayley said: “I don’t think of myself as brave. I am terrified. Knowing you are living with incurable cancer is hell every single day.

“I have no control over what is happening or any idea how to tell my children something that will have the biggest impact on their lives at such a young age.

“The main thing for me now is that I don’t want to be forgotten – I cannot bear the idea that my children won’t remember who mummy was.

“Doing what I can while to stop other families going through this hell is so important – we have to stop cancer destroying lives – and funding more research is the only way we’re going to beat this disease.”

To sponsor Hayley and Helen visit https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/team/shirley-chic

l It’s not too late to join Hayley and Helen and more than 5,000 other women and girls in this weekend’s Race for Life events in Southampton.

Entries close tonight for Pretty Muddy, which takes place on Saturday, while entries will close tomorrow for Race for Life 5k and 10k events happening on Sunday morning. Sign up by visiting @raceforlife.org