SARAH Deakin has her optician to thank for potentially saving her life by flagging up what turned out to be an incredibly rare brain tumour during a "run-of-the-mill eye test".

The 43-year-old mum-of-one made an eye test appointment with Vera Wilton in Dalton in July after developing a blind spot in one of her eyes.

Within minutes of the optician taking a closer look, Mrs Deakin was told she must get to hospital urgently.

Just two days later, an emergency CAT scan was carried out at Furness General Hospital and doctors wasted no time in breaking the bad news to Mrs Deakin and her husband Scott.

"We were beginning to think nothing was wrong because we'd been sat there for a while and not heard anything," Mr Deakin, a former submariner, said.

"But then the doctor came in and said 'I've got the worst possible news to tell you'. Sarah just fell to bits and I couldn't get her to stop crying."

Further tests revealed Mrs Deakin, an accountant who runs her own business DND Accountancy, had a large and extremely rare falco-tentorial meningioma - a brain tumour which was perilously close to her brain stem.

While trying to remain positive for their 12-year-old son Kane, Mr and Mrs Deakin prepared for what would be a gruelling 14-hour operation involving two teams of brain surgeons at the Royal Preston Hospital just a couple of weeks after the diagnosis.

"I was the more positive one of the two of us at the time but you just can't help fearing the worst," Mr Deakin, 48, said.

"I saw her in the Critical Care Unit the day after the operation and it was awful, she had all sorts of tubes coming out of her and didn't really realise I was there."

Led by Professor Nihal Gurusinghe, neurosurgeons had managed to remove just over half of the tumour, nicknamed 'Amadeus' by the Deakins as "a tenuous link to 80s pop star Falco".

In a bizarre coincidence, it transpired Prof Gurusinghe had helped the family out once before - as he had operated on Mr Deakin in 2003 when an injury sustained after carrying an 800lb gun barrel on HMS Neptune left him with a prolapsed disc in his neck.

The Deakins, who live in Harewood Close, now face an agonising wait until February when an MRI scan will reveal if the benign tumour has grown.

"It massively scared me at the time but I feel really positive now about things going forward," Mrs Deakin said.

Despite the relative success of her operation, Mrs Deakin, a former Parkview School pupil, is now no longer able to drive and has no peripheral vision.

She also occasionally suffers from alexia - a condition where dyslexia develops as a result of a brain injury, but remarkably the strong-willed accountant returned to work three weeks ago and is determined to win the battle with her brain tumour.

"Both me and Kane couldn't be prouder of her," Mr Deakin said.

"From the woman she was when we received the diagnosis to today, you'd think they were two completely different people. This has been a huge test of her character."

In a bid to give something back to the highly-skilled medical teams responsible for Mrs Deakin's recovery, the family has launched a fundraising campaign in her name to raise cash for the Sydney Driscoll Neuroscience Foundation in Preston, of which Professor Gurusinghe is a trustee.

"I'm back to being me now and this is all about doing something to help the foundation and helping others," Mrs Deakin said.

Donations and items set to be auctioned off at a fundraising event set to be organised have been flooding in.

Barrow Raiders have already donated a number of auction items, while others include a squad-signed Man United shirt, signed photos from Peter Hook of Joy Division and New Order fame, a St Helen's shirt thanks to John Jefferson from Barrow Island and the shorts worn by Raiders' player Bradd Crellin during their promotion-sealing win against Whitehaven on Sunday.

A Brad Singleton-signed Leeds Rhino shirt and items from Barrow and Lancashire cricketer Liam Livingstone will also be raffled off.

You can donate to the Deakins' fundraising campaign HERE .