Sophie is now a healthy little girl

Being given the "all clear" after a cancer diagnosis is like winning the lottery, according to Catherine Render.

She and her daughter Sophie, now eight, have both been hit by the disease.

But both have now been told they have no signs of cancer.

Catherine, 38, tells BBC News Online the family's story.

"We first noticed something was wrong with Sophie a month after her third birthday. She was pale and she had a rash.

"But the last thing we though it was going to be was leukaemia."

You think you're infallible and your family is too Catherine Render

However, hospital tests showed Sophie did have Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

"I couldn't believe it was happening. You think you're infallible and your family is too.

"You think that everything's going to be OK.

"The news was absolutely devastating. At first you do think 'this is a death sentence' and that there's nothing you can do."

'Thought it was nothing'

But while Sophie was receiving treatment, Catherine found a lump in her breast.

"I didn't think it was going to be anything. I'd even gone along to the clinic on my own."

Mother and daughter went through chemotherapy - and lost their hair - at the same time

Catherine, from Eccleston, St Helens, had also had a mastectomy, and was given courses of the drugs herceptin and taxotere.

The family thought their brush with cancer was over.

But when she was five, Sophie she had a relapse.

She then contracted a virus that caused a fungal infection to grow in an area of her brain.

Doctors gave her 24 hours to live.

Sophie was saved by a bone marrow transplant from her brother Jack, now six.

Then, last year, Catherine's breast cancer reoccurred and she had to undergo another course of chemotherapy.

Role model

Sophie has now been clear of cancer for two years, and Catherine for two months.

She said the news that they were both free of the disease had come as a big relief.

"You've always got it in the back of your mind that you're going to get bad news.

"But then it's like winning the lottery. You've got more time.

"It's still really, really frightening for me. But my mother is a really good role model. She had breast cancer twice, but she has been clear for 30 years.

"I think the advert that Cancer Research UK have made is quite positive.