A YOUNG mother battling cancer for the second time is determined to walk down the aisle like any other bride-to-be when she marries her childhood sweetheart this week.

Vicky Cross, 25, has endured a tragic chain of events in her short life but the defiant mum-of-two has vowed to make the most of it.

On Friday she will wed the father of her children and partner of 12 years, Brendon Smith, at St John’s Church in their hometown of Shildon, in County Durham.

Although they have been together since school, the pair have never tied the knot.

A devastating blow in December - discovering her cancer, returned for the second time, had spread - spurred the couple on to finally get hitched.

“He first proposed to me on my sixteenth birthday,” said Miss Cross, who has six-year-old twins. “This time I got a box (with a ring in) at Christmas. It was all a bit quick. I’d come back from the hospital and a friend was over and I said ‘it’s back and all I want to do is get married now’ because we don’t know what will happen.”

Within days a date was fixed, along with a venue and invites for 180 people.

Now everything is set, they just have three more days to wait.

“We’ve waited long enough,” she added. “It will be a normal wedding - the big white wedding.” Miss Cross was first diagnosed with small cell lung cancer in 2015 after suffering from breathlessness and coughing.

A scan in September showed up a grapefruit-sized tumour and a later biopsy revealed the worst.

It was on Mr Smith’s 23rd birthday the following month when she received the call confirming it was stage four.

Miss Cross was forced to give up her job as a production operative at Newton Aycliffe’s Husqvarna and underwent an intensive course of treatment including chemotherapy and radiation - leading to debilitating side affects and a prolonged hospital stay over Christmas.

As far as the pair were concerned, she was on the mend in the first half of 2016.

“I was fine,” she added. “We were told there was no sign of the cancer so I just assumed I was in remission. I even applied to go back to work. This kind of cancer doesn’t happen at my age, and it doesn’t reoccur.”

But when breathlessness returned last summer Miss Cross approached her doctor and had another scan.

In what were very rare circumstances, the cancer had returned to the same place and more treatment followed.

An operation to remove her lung was scheduled and on the day of admission it was found Miss Cross was pregnant, again with twins, despite being told she could not have children.

The medical team were unable to operate as a result, and due to her condition Miss Cross had a termination.

When she returned for the rescheduled operation in December last year, the delay had led to the cancer spreading to her lymph nodes. “It was gutting because I knew what radiation had done to me before,” she said.

Miss Cross has undergone more treatment since December and will find out what the future holds on March 6.

If it remains she will only be able to have one more bout of treatment before being given palliative care.

“They don’t know what will happen,” she added. “We’ve tried to fit everything in before March 6.”

Miss Cross and her husband-to-be will have a reception at Woodham Golf and Country Club. A honeymoon in Lanzarote will follow.