A MUM who had some of her ovarian tissue frozen in Oxford after being diagnosed with cancer has urged others to get behind the NHS service that helped her.

Isabelle Providence, 28, made the call after being supported by the Fertility Preservation Service at the John Radcliffe Hospital - the first of its kind in England.

The project manager from Benson had a two-year-old daughter, Sophia, and was planning a second child when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma in January.

She said: "I went from being a very healthy young woman with everything ahead of me to having an aggressive cancer and needing to start immediate chemotherapy.

"Within seconds of hearing the dreaded word I felt a real chill; I immediately thought about our plans for a second child."

Her consultant introduced her to the service, which is offered for free by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and helped its 100th patient last month.

It allows children and young women to store ovarian and pre-pubertal testicular tissue before undergoing cancer treatment, which can make them infertile.

Mrs Providence could not have her eggs frozen through standard NHS treatment due to the urgency of her situation and so used the service at the John Radcliffe Hospital at short notice in March.

She then went on to undergo radiotherapy and a stem cell transplant, making it highly unlikely she would be able to conceive naturally again.

She said: "The road ahead is still very difficult but this is one small part where I feel reassured. It is a gift of hope when everything else feels bleak.

"I can't put into words how grateful my husband and I are. Through a very tough year this has helped me enormously."

The Fertility Preservation Service was set up in 2013 by teams from OUH and Oxford University and is paid for by donations to national body the Future Fertility Trust.

It costs about £3,000 per patient to process and store the tissue. So far no babies have been born through the service but it can now theoretically help up to 70 patients a year.

Dr Sheila Lane, OUH clinical lead for the service, said: "It is something practical and positive at a time when patients and their families are fearful of the worst.

"A phenomenal team effort has made this possible - paediatric and young adult surgeons, gynaecologists, reproductive medicine specialists, anaesthetists, tissue bank teams, oncologists, researchers and regulatory staff - many giving their time for free.

"The treatment is ground-breaking and so is not yet an NHS-commissioned and funded service. We are entirely dependent on charitable money."

For more information on the Future Fertility Trust or to donate visit justgiving.com/futurefertilitytrustfund