'8 years after I survived cancer, my 15-year-old son received a terrifying diagnosis.'

Nat Khoury felt as though she was having an out of body experience, the day she heard the words: Hodgkin's Lymphoma. 

She was 38 at the time, and the mother of three children, the youngest just two years old. Nat had been to the doctor after discovering a lump in her collarbone. 

"Everyone thought it was probably nothing," says Nat, now 48.

But a needle biopsy revealed Stage 1 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. 

"It feels so surreal. It's that out of body experience. They're talking, and you're hearing this white noise," she says. 

Watch: A 35-year-old woman shares what it's like to battle cancer while pregnant. Article continues after the video.

"Once the shock passed, then the fear set in. I'm a young mum, (I thought), what if I don't get through this? Who's going to look after my children?

"Once the fear kicked in, the fear kicked in. It was really tough in those early days, but I was a young mum, so I had no other choice, I had to be tough."

Nat's treatment included surgery, chemotherapy and radiation over four months. 

"I was losing my hair, I was self-conscious about that, I was putting on weight, I was self-conscious about that." 

Dark humour along with Nat's close and supportive family helped get her through. 

"I remember the sense that everything was changing, and I couldn't understand why," says Nat's son, Sebastian, who was seven at the time. 

"Her hair was something she took a lot of pride in. As a family, my mum, dad and my two brothers and myself, we all got buzz cuts."

Nat threw herself into helping others, taking on ambassador work to give her cancer, and herself, a purpose. 

'The worst day of my life.'

Nat recovered and was ultimately declared cancer free. 

But eight years later, she heard those words again: Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Only this time, there were additional words — Stage 4, and the diagnosis was not for Nat, but for her son, Sebastian. 

"I thought the day of my diagnosis was the worst day of my life, but this was the worst day of my life," Nat says. 

"It's really hard to explain. Those emotions were so intense, the sadness, your heart actually physically hurts for what he's about to go through.

"It doesn't matter that they say the prognosis was good, he's a 15-year-old boy, he was supposed to be going out with his mates."

Sebastian's symptoms were different to Nat's — there was no lump, or any obvious signs, so the diagnosis came as a shock.  

"Doctors couldn't feel anything. It wasn't until we did an ultrasound six months after the itching started, that they found it.

"Mum got off the phone with the doctor and sent Dad in to give me the news. He told me the doctor thinks I have Hodgkin's Lymphoma, the one mum had. 

"I knew what he said, and I knew what it meant, I knew what cancer was and I knew that it was serious."

Nat and her son, Sebastian. Image: Supplied.

But, from the moment he heard the words, Sebastian went into survival mode.

"Pretty much from that moment until the end of chemo, my brain switched into this mode that focused on getting better. In that six months I didn't process or display much emotion at all. My brain was just so focused on getting better."

Nat believes Sebastian's autism may have helped him to process his emotions more strategically. 

"He has worked so hard since he was diagnosed in prep, on how to process emotion. I think all the tools he was given as a young child to deal with emotional feelings helped him through that process.

"Because you would not believe this child… the nurses were in awe of him, they knew how sick he was."

Sebastian underwent 15 days of chemotherapy, 15 without, with sessions lasting sometimes as long as nine hours. And studying at the same time. 

"He was always cracking jokes. It's probably what gave me strength. If he was curled up in a ball crying 'I can't do this', how was I going to force him to get this treatment that would save his life?" 

Sebastian endured six months of treatment, and despite a heavy physical and emotional toll, is now cancer free. He says the experience brought he and his mother closer. 

"It was kind of fitting that if I was going to get cancer, it would be the same type of cancer as mum. It was reassuring to know mum has done this and she's beaten it and now it's my turn."

Nat and Sebastian have written a book about their experience. Image: Supplied.

Finding closure.

And, just like his mother, Sebastian is also now cancer free. 

"For the first six months after chemo, was really when I emotionally processed what I went through," says Sebastian. 

"I was able to appreciate the magnitude of what I went through, adjusting to normal life and what that meant. How I could almost use my experience to reshape my life."

Sebastian now has plans to go to medical school, and potentially study oncology. He's also dedicated to encouraging others to donate blood, having been the beneficiary of eight blood transfusions. 

He and his mum, Nat, have also written a book about their experience of enduring cancer together.  It's called, The Worst Best Year.

"For me it was therapeutic. Sebastian had just finished treatment, I got COVID so I just started writing, and when I started it just flowed."

In the beginning, Nat didn't read any of Sebastian's chapters, she simply wasn't ready. 

"It was an ability to gain some closure, but also save those memories," says Sebastian. 

"Which is really important because you also save the teaching you've gained out of the experience.

"But often when I was writing the book I was thinking of people who might be in a similar situation to me, picking it up and reading it and thinking about how it might give them some confidence."

To find out more about Nat and Sebastian's book, visit, theworstbestyear.com.