FAMILIES and friends affected by cancer in children did their bit last month to raise awareness of the life-changing, life-threatening and sometimes fatal disease.

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, which ran throughout September, saw charities and people from across the UK join the campaign to promote awareness and raise vital funds for research.

About 1,600 children are diagnosed every year in the UK and many long-term survivors suffer from chronic health problems related to their initial therapy.

In our region alone youngsters are battling the horrific disease with the help of a team of specialists at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, in Newcastle, where children, sisters, brothers, mums and dads have found common ground, comfort and friendship.

Although thrown together at the worst time of their lives, the hospital has given families a network of companions who understand one another while showing just how common cancer is among kids.

Every family has their own story. Each one starts with the journey to diagnosis, the treatment that ensued and how they have manage to re-build their lives to a "new normal".

The same threads run through many tales of diagnosis - parents not feeling they were listened to and countless missed signs.

Rebecca Aither, of Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, first noticed a change in her daughter Freya about this time last year.

The now five-year-old was not herself, was behaving differently, couldn't sleep and started having nose bleeds.

The family became more concerned when after Christmas Freya's behaviour worsened and she started to fall over at school.

Between then and May she was misdiagnosed or sent away from GPs, walk-ins or A&E on four separate occasions. That month a desperate Mrs Aither turned to a friend for help to fix an MRI scan and two days later an inoperable grade one glioma (brain tumour) was discovered.

The family was rushed to the RVI and within hours Freya was started on a course of treatment. Although not a cancer, she is treated as a cancer patient.

"I always knew it was a brain tumour," says Mrs Aither, 29, who gave up work as a teacher. "She loved school from September to October and she was thriving. This came out of nowhere. Every mum I've spoken to wasn't listened to. Raising awareness needs to be from a professional point of view - if there is a parent that goes to you you have a duty of care to dig deeper. If you think something is wrong (with your child) then push and push and push."

In August a scan revealed treatment had caused the tumour to reduce by 50 per cent and a consultant told Mrs Aither he was 90 per cent sure she would live to tell the tale when she is 40.

Stacey Eager, 27, of Darlington, faced a similar gruelling wait before her youngest son William, now aged three, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

He fell ill with laryngitis and croup cough after a holiday in October 2014 and had not recovered by January.

Despite behavioural changes, inability to sleep and suffering from swelling, William's symptoms were put down to a virus.

It was not until May 2015, after being misdiagnosed as anaemic, that Mrs Eager's son was tested again, diagnosed and sent straight to the RVI for chemotherapy. He will continue the treatment until July, 2018, after which he will be monitored for five years.

"When they told me I was so angry because I already knew," says the mother-of-four. "You have to stand your ground. I'm quite a strong-willed person and it was hard enough for me."

Hartlepool mother Dawn Anderson's son Leyton is also facing a demanding course of treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia which will end in April, 2019.

The four-year-old was diagnosed in January following three stints in hospital and a misdiagnosis of osteomyelitis and several courses of antibiotics.

Cancer has taken its toll on the patients, parents and siblings. It has had a huge financial impact, turned their worlds upside down and they have had to create a new life.

But even in their darkest moments, they say they have found light.

Danielle Johnson, of Bishop Middleham, near Sedgefield, has been flying the flag for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

A friend of Mrs Aither, Mrs Eager and Ms Anderson, and mother to two-year-old acute lymphoblastic leukaemia-sufferer Rosa, Mrs Johnson had her own struggle to diagnosis last year.

She said: "The positives are the friendships we have made and we are one family supporting each other.

"We want to create more awareness, get people to stop and think that this is happening all around them."