A mother has shared a distressing image of her 10-year-old son suffering from cancer, showing the effects that the disease and its treatment has on his life.

Drake Medinger is suffering from leukaemia for the second time and is experiencing painful side effects from the chemotherapy and medicine he is on.

He was first diagnosed in 2012 and since then has endured spinal taps, blood transfusions and surgery, the Daily Mail reported. After going into remission, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Drake’s mother Jessica calls him “my whole world” and the picture she shared shows him stood in their bathroom, leaning on a sideboard and clearly in pain. His hair has fallen out from his chemotherapy treatment and he appears pale and thin.

“This picture I’m posting is from this morning,” she said, “and before you scream and cry ‘why would she post a picture of him in a pull up, the indecency,’ well, 1. It doesn’t show more than swimming jammers and 2. Because life is not always politically correct and pretty, it is real. Life isn’t pretty, and cancer destroys a person.”

Drake is shown wearing a diaper “because 75% of the time he can’t control his bathroom habits,” his mother wrote.

Explaining what this picture means, Ms Medinger wrote: “This is skin and bones, because I have to beg him to eat just one green bean for supper, or drink a cup of water throughout the day.

“This is having your son sleep with you at night because he is afraid of something happening and being alone, and by something I mean dying.

“This is having middle of the night conversations with a 10-year-old asking if he dies will he go to heaven and will he see his dad there and be able to talk and play with him,” she writes, later adding: “This is him telling me ‘mommy, I’m not going to make it’.”

Drake’s mother said he is too weak to get out of bed or walk and needs to be moved in a wheelchair or be carried, that he doesn’t want to be touched because he is in too much pain and that he often throws up his medication. Ms Medinger said that at one point Drake had to take 44 chemotherapy pills in the space of 24 hours.

The picture was shared on the Love What Matters Facebook page, where followers were given an address where they could send messages of support or gifts for Drake to.

The day after the picture was posted on Facebook an update on Drake’s YouCaring crowdfunding page set up to help cover his medical costs said he was back in hospital and may need to be given a feeding tube as he won’t eat or drink.