A young mum who was told her debilitating head pressure was down to migraines has been given just 18 months to live. Paige Carter, 25, said she visited her GP three times complaining of excruciating pain, but was informed it was likely severe headaches or a reaction to her contraceptive implant.

However, the Milton Keynes woman's condition deteriorated dramatically in December while she was waiting for an MRI scan, after an optometrist had discovered inflammation in her optic nerve. In January, she received the heartbreaking diagnosis of a grade-four glioma, with doctors giving her just 18 months to live.

The mum-of-one has now redefined her illness as 'life-limiting' and is focused on creating precious memories with her daughter Willow, who turns two in March.

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Paige, who works as a healthcare assistant in a paediatric emergency department, said: "When the doctor said 18 months, I didn't believe her. I'm only 25 - I'm so young.

"It broke my whole family. We didn't understand how this could all come from a bit of head pain and pressure."

She explained that the pressure in her head first started in late spring last year, describing the sensation as "someone squeezing her brain". When she visited her GP in June, she claims she was told it was probably migraines and was prescribed an anti-inflammatory medication during a second appointment.

However, Paige was experiencing the pain daily, and during her third GP appointment in December, they suggested removing her contraceptive implant, believing it might be hormone-related. They also advised an eye examination, and on December 9, an optometrist identified swelling in her optic nerve.

After discussing her additional symptoms, she was referred for an MRI scan scheduled for January. On December 27, Paige awoke with intense pressure in her head, found herself unable to raise it and began vomiting.

She contacted her parents Kate and Steve, who hurried back whilst her best friend drove her to A&E at Milton Keynes Hospital. Paige underwent a CT scan and doctors informed her there was a mass in her head, and she was immediately blue-lighted to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Paige said: "I went straight to a high dependency neurological bed where they gave me a steroid to reduce the inflammation. They said the location of the tumour is close to my bed stem and it was blocking intercranial fluid from draining.

"I had surgery to drain the fluid, which took six hours, and my brain also began to bleed, so they had to put in a temporary drain. They took a biopsy and I was told the mass was cancer and inoperable."

Medical professionals informed Paige she had a H3K27M-mutant glioma, measuring the size of a golf ball - 24mm long and 46mm wide.

Paige said: "They told me I'd never be cancer-free. In the first week after my diagnosis, nobody knew what to say or how to act.

"But a family friend with the same disease was given a year to live and four years later she's still here. It's given me so much hope."

Paige, who is battling fatigue and nausea, has undergone 33 radiotherapy sessions and volunteered for a clinical trial. She is now urging the government to boost research funding for brain cancers, which are the leading cause of cancer deaths in children and adults under 40.

Paige said: "You just don't know until you're in this position how scary the disease is and what it can do. Brain cancers get just one per cent of all the funding for cancers. It's such a low proportion. We'd like to see personalised treatments, more trials and turn the terminal into treatable."

To help Paige create lasting memories with her daughter Willow and ease financial stress during her inability to work, her friends have established a GoFundMe page.

Paige added: "My daughter is so young and memories are going to be important. We want to go to Disneyland Paris, on a family cruise and a trip out to Cornwall."