PRIMARY school teacher Kathy Nutter spends her days in the classroom surrounded by children.

But after treatment for cervical cancer the 31-year-old has been told she will never be able to have any of her own.

Kathy, who teaches maths to underachieving students at St John Southworth RC Primary School, Nelson, was diagnosed after doctors found a six centimetre tumour on her cervix.

And following months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, she was given the devastating news that she will never be able to conceive because the treatment brought on early menopause.

“Having children hadn’t been on my priority list and my partner Carl has three already,” said Kathy, of Bridgefield Street, Hapton.

“But only quite recently we’d decided it’d be nice to have a little Kathy and Carl running around.

“But then, bang. It was taken out of our hands.

“I cried a lot when I found out. It makes you realise how much you do want something when the option is taken away.

“We could have delayed treatment to freeze eggs but we didn’t want to take the risk of the tumour growing.”

Kathy, who teaches six to seven year-olds as part of a numeracy intervention programme added: “It’s something we’re just going to have to live with. And I’m happy to just be here.

“I think it’ll inspire me more to help as many children as I can in my job as a teacher knowing that I can’t have any of my own. I love my job.”

And now Kathy, who stood up one night in her local pub The Railway, Manchester Road, to announce her recent cancer diagnosis, writes an online diary in a bid to help others like her.

The blog is posted via the Macmillan Cancer Support website and receives hundreds of visits every day.

Kathy said: “I don’t see why there should be a stigma attached to cancer.

“Anyone who has cancer needs the support of their family, their friends and their neighbours. More people knowing is better as talking helps.

“The blog is a way of creating awareness and helping anyone touched by cancer through their relatives or friends or someone they work with.

“I read a lot of blogs when I first got diagnosed but none of them tell you what you really want to now, like how it really affects you on a daily basis, so that’s what I decided I needed to do to help others.

"So I go into details of side effects of treatment and everything.”

Blog entries include ‘never going to be a mum’, ‘I do my crying in the bath’ and ‘the worst 15 hours ever’.

And Kathy said writing her feelings down had helped her deal with the mental trauma of having cancer.

She said: “It helps me to remember things in some ways, like having a record.

“When the doctors tell you it’s like you don’t hear anything apart from the word cancer.

“And the blog helps me get my feelings out. I cry when I’m writing them but then it’s done and dealt with.”

Earlier this month Kathy’s boyfriend of three years Carl Morris, 39, proposed on a night out with friends in Burnley nightclub Lava Ignite while the couple were celebrating the good news that the treatment has reduced the tumour.

And now the couple, who plan to marry next April, have to wait until June for an MRI scan to confirm if there are any remains of the tumour left behind or if it has spread elsewhere.

“They don’t give you the all clear for at least five years, with ongoing tests and checkups at regular intervals. But I’m keeping positive,” Kathy said.

“I do have little moments where I have a little worry about the next couple of months while I’m waiting for my MRI scan – not to mention the rest of my life.

“But life still goes on and I am now busy trying to organise an engagement party.

“I will not let this define me; I am Kathy Nutter a teacher, girlfriend, sister, daughter and friend before I am a cancer patient.

“I could easily sit back and get depressed, but I don’t want to.

"I'm lucky to have my life, it’s precious and I want to enjoy it.”