A TEENAGE art student living with deadly brain tumours has drawn on his past experience to raise money for charity.

Liam Lincoln, who discovered he had the terminal condition three years ago, has raised more than £1,000 for the breast cancer charity Breakthrough.

The 19-year-old, from Middlesbrough, said he had got so much out of the National Health Service he wanted to try to give something back.

Staff and fellow pupils at Cleveland College of Art and Design watched with delight and mock horror as Liam had his legs, chest, back and armpits waxed at the Greens Lane Linthorpe campus recently.

He said: "When I saw all the people waiting to watch I thought What on earth have I done?'. I had a placard saying save more boobs', so everyone knew what I was doing it for.

"The wax was very hot and I had to shave my legs afterwards as they were a bit patchy, but it was all worth it."

Liam was 16 when he woke up one day feeling paralysed down one side of his body. He later found out that he had suffered a brain haemorrhage, which could have killed him.

He said: "I began to feel sick all the time and started to get double- vision, I felt like I was drunk.

I was taken to hospital and when my head was scanned three tumours were found."

Liam was prepared for surgery, but doctors decided not to proceed with the operation as it was too risky.

He was told that he had probably been living with the tumours since birth and, unless he suffered another bleed, may be able to live with the condition.

"I felt very low after coming out of hospital as I was taking steroids and I put on weight. As I was always drawing, a friend suggested that I apply for art college,"

he said.

Three years on, Liam is coming to the end of his level two national diploma BTEC course at the art and design college.

He is about to show off his work at an end-of-year exhibition and has already had a piece of work snapped up by Pinchinthorpe Hall, near Guisborough, east Cleveland.

The art and design student said: "My leader Andrea Goodwill has helped and believed in me all the way through. Before coming to college my life didn't have a purpose but I'm now looking forward to studying textiles at university.

"I don't think about what might happen with my health in the future, I am just living life to the full and making the most of every moment."