A brave young woman who was given just 12 weeks to live three years ago says she is not giving up as there is still “more for me to do”.

Charmaine Jannone, 34, from Ashford, discovered she had a rare brain tumour in 2020 after falling ill at work.

She was devastatingly given just three months to live – but has already defied doctors’ predictions.

During the past three years, she also helped save her mother’s life by warning her of a growth on her back. That turned out to be an aggressive cancer and was removed in time.

Speaking to KentOnline, Charmaine said: “I am not giving up, there is more for me to do.

“I would tell anybody who's seriously ill don’t give up, keep doing the things that you love and stay positive.

“Keep planning, do things to look forward to and make memories.

“Surviving the original prognosis time gives me more hope.”

Until March 2020, Charmaine was a normal young woman keeping fit through aerial hoop workouts, which involves exercising from a giant suspended metal ring.

She was a keen amateur photographer who held local exhibitions such as at St Mary the Virgin Church in Ashford town centre. She also had a job as an optical consultant nearby at Boots.

But that month Charmaine was taken ill at work with severe head pains. Three or four days later, when she was no better, she was taken to the William Harvey Hospital.

After tests at Maidstone Hospital, on March 18, 2020, she was given the shattering news that she had a rare brain tumour, glioblastoma multiforme of the pons. This is a highly aggressive cancer that originates from the brain stem (pons).

Charmaine’s condition was so severe that she was given 12 weeks to live.

Yet in a remarkable twist she saved her own mother Janice Moon from dying of cancer the following month by warning her of one freckle on her back changing colour and coming off the skin.

Janice’s thoughts were instead overwhelmed by her daughter's illness but Charmaine urged her to get checked.

Kent and Canterbury Hospital found it to be a fast-growing aggressive melanoma (skin cancer). Emergency surgery took place just five days after diagnosis and Janice is now completely clear of the illness.

Janice, 51, said: “The cancer was deep inside so Charmaine saved my life.”

In March 2021, Charmaine wrote on her Facebook page about her own illness, on the first anniversary of her diagnosis.

By then she had had 30 sessions of radiotherapy and was about to start her sixth month of chemotherapy. The tumour by then had shrunk twice.

But she needed so much steroid medication her face ended up swollen and she was even diagnosed with diabetes.

She has never been able to work since her diagnosis.

Today Charmaine can no longer walk, having no balance left, and the tumour has grown again.

There is no more treatment available for her and it is just a matter of keeping her comfortable. Carers visit her at home around the clock.

Charmaine said: “The doctors don’t know what to do with me. I can only take things one day at a time and do what I can.

“Sometimes I still get angry about it. I ask: ‘What did I do to get this? I never smoked or took drugs.’

“I hoped with the treatment it would go in a year and I would be able to get back to work.

“I wish I could go back to my fitness exercises and go out on longer trips but I can’t travel.”

Charmaine is often left exhausted by her illness and speaks with a weakened voice.

She now treasures her short days out, to go shopping, to a cafe or trips to Folkestone driven by Janice.

Charmaine, who studied photography at the then South Kent College, added: “At least this has made me very appreciative of everything I still have, like my friends and family.”

Her father is John Philpott, and her sisters are Amy and Lauren and she has a stepfather, now Janice’s husband, Jason Moon.

Despite her own desperate condition, Charmaine has not stopped thinking of others. Last year she bought and delivered toys to the children’s Padua Ward at the William Harvey Hospital, and donates to food banks.

Janice said: “Charmaine has a zest for life, which keeps her going. She has never felt sorry for herself. She keeps me strong.

“We just go from day to day with however she is and keep her comfortable. We just take every day as it comes.

“We didn’t even think she’d make Christmas 2020 and the doctors have no longer given a time frame.”

In 2020 Janice had to give up her own job to help Charmaine. She was a trainee care practitioner at the Ashminster House care home in Hythe Road, Willesborough.

Charmaine’s social network and the wider community have rallied around her.

In 2020 her friend Sarah Tyndall raised £3,000 on a crowdfunding page so she could go to Disneyland Paris.

And last month, on December 23, about 40 members of the Ashford Sings choral group turned up at her front gate to sing carols to her.

The event, called Sing for Charmaine, was a surprise arranged by her mother.

Rick Cooke, from the group, said: “Family and friends wanted to make that Christmas one to remember for Charmaine. It was very moving.”