jade goodyJade Goody has revealed she’s trying her best to downplay her cancer battle around sons Bobby and Freddie.

The Big Brother star was diagnosed with cervical cancer in August and after a hysterectomy in September, has undergone months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy - but has tried to keep the life as normal as possible for five year old Bobby and four year old Freddie - her children from her relationship with Jeff Brazier.

She told the Mirror recently: “They know I’m poorly. But they don’t know it’s cancer. At their ages they don’t even know what the word means and I don’t think they should.

“I’ve told them I have tadpoles in my belly, but as my hair falls out the tadpoles are disappearing.

“My boys are what have got me through this far. There are days when the minute I open my eyes I’m in pain but I have to think, ‘Pull yourself together Jade’. So I get up, get their uniforms on and do the school run. In front of my kids, I’m totally normal. Then I drive home and go straight back to bed.

“I do get teary in front of them, but I try to hide it. The worst time is when they are playing up. It hurts me to tell them off because I might not have much time left with them. Then that thought upsets me and I can feel tears welling up in my eyes.

“But I don’t want them to think they’ve upset me. I will never be a burden to my sons. I never want them thinking, ‘I wonder if Mum is going to be being sick when we get in?’

“My children are everything to me - I’ve idolised them from the moment they were born. But when someone says you have only a 40 per cent chance of staying alive then you have never ever appreciated your kids, your home, your family, your life, quite as much as you do at that moment.”

She added she worries what will happen to the boys if the worst happens: “I worry about where they might go to school and what they will look like. I’m thinking, ‘Oh God, if I die, will their dad make sure they have a clean shirt every morning?’

“If I felt I was getting really ill I’d make a DVD with instructions about how to look after the boys. And on it I would let my kids know how much I love them.

“What if they never found out how much I loved them and how I’ve grafted every second of every day to give them the best? What if they couldn’t remember the holidays we’ve been on and all the laughs we’ve had together? And how on Christmas morning I put fake snow all over the carpet to make everything special?

“It breaks my heart just thinking about it.”

Jade is currently holidaying with her sons in the Mediterranean during a break in her chemotherapy treatment.