IT was a dream come true for Caroline Summers when she discovered she was pregnant, aged 49, after 30 years of marriage.

But her joy turned to a nightmare when she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer just before her son, Clarke, was born.

Mrs Summers lost her battle against the disease last month — just 16 months after her baby son was born.

Her grieving husband, Derek, is now trying to rebuild his life as a single parent.

He has spoken of his devastation that his wife has missed out on so many milestones in their son’s early life.

The 53-year-old of Clayton Street, The Haulgh, said: “It turned out to be a very aggressive form of cancer.

“After giving birth she had a mastectomy and then the lymph nodes under her left arm were removed. But it had already spread to her liver.

“The medical teams at Bolton and MRI tried desperately to save her life, but in the end it was not possible.

“When we finally realised there was nothing that could be done, it was awful. She had gone through hell and she wasn’t even going to see Clarke walk.

“It was so bad, if you were watching a film with a storyline like ours, you would turn it off because you’d think it was too far-fetched.

“Being told you are pregnant when you had been childless for as long as we were, you would think we were the happiest people in the world, but all that was taken away when she was diagnosed with cancer a month before Clarke was born.”

Mrs Summers, a former air stewardess, died on March 7. Mr Summers worked as a salesman but is no longer working and is concentrating on bringing up his son.

He said: “My focus now is on giving Clarke the sort of life his mother would have wanted him to have.”

Mr Summers is planning to sell his home in Bolton and move back to Sale in south Manchester, where he was brought up.