One minute I was a normal mother with everything to live for. The

BARBARA Rae dips her paintbrush into a jar of murky water and paints a single white flower on one side of a long wooden box.

It is her 45th birthday party and she is relaxing with 12 of her closest friends.

None of them is any good at drawing and the child-like paintings include pretty flowers, the sun setting over a desert, a dragonfly and a series of small faces.

The women giggle as they brush brightly-coloured images on their unusual canvas and enjoy lunch.

This summer day two years ago, with the help of her friends, was when Barbara put the final touches to her coffin. The 46-year-old lecturer has now hidden it out of sight in the attic so it will not distress her two young sons.

It is just one of the ways she is coming to terms with her expected death in less than a year's time from breast cancer, which has spread to her bones.

"It may sound bizarre, but I have already bought my coffin," she said. "It was so cold and official it scared me. So with the help of friends I personalised it. We bought some bright paint and made it more colourful and fun.

"I wanted them to be the ones to cover it. People are adding on all the time. Last weekend a friend put a sunflower on it.

"I sent out invitations to my 'coffin painting' party. They were cut out of brown paper in the shape of a coffin. We bought some bright paint and made it more colourful and fun."

Last week Barbara received pounds 100,000 from Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust which runs Queen Alexandra, the hospital whose blunder denied her vital treatment and, specialists believe, cut her chance of survival from 50 per cent to 10 per cent.

The trust paid her the compensation a week before her case was due to be heard at the High Court in London. They have not admitted liability or apologised.

"I was relieved to get the money," said Barbara. "It will go towards a trust fund for my children and the cost of paying for a housekeeper.

"But it was never about money. You can't put a price on a life. What about my children growing up without their mother and my husband Stephen without his wife?

"And what about me? There are so many places that I want to visit and people to meet. But I will never get the chance.

"I will never know whether I would have beaten the cancer completely if I had known seven months earlier. Their mistake cost me my life. I had four hospital tests. Two came back highly suspicious and the other two couldn't find any malignant cells. That didn't mean that there were none there."

If she had just one wish, it would be that she could have more time to spend with Stephen and sons Dominic, nine, and Auriol, six, before she dies.

"They are the most important thing in my life right now," says Barbara. "I've made such an effort to put on a brave face for the sake of my boys. I try to carry on as normally as possible.

"I can't stop them from doing everyday things like going to their friends just because I'm dying, even though I want to spend as much time with them as I can. That would be selfish.

"I have been as open as possible with them. We don't discuss dying as I think they are too young to talk about it. But they do know that mummy is seriously ill. Dominic has picked up a lot and is very angry. He told his teacher that he knows the hospital messed up and that he wants to help but he doesn't know how. It broke my heart to hear that."

Since the diagnosis, Barbara has indulged her passion for travelling. She has visited Florence, Paris and Dublin with Stephen, a chartered surveyor, and more trips are planned to Madrid and Prague.

"Stephen and I took the boys to Australia for 10 weeks. I will always treasure that time. A lot of my relatives live there so it was a chance to say goodbye to them. I also visited my parents' graves," she says.

"It felt so good to be making productive use of my time. My biggest fear now is not the cancer, I know that will get me inevitably, but of wasting time. Even pottering round the kitchen with my family and cooking a meal is precious."

March 10, 1995 is a date that will remain etched in Barbara's mind for the rest of her life. It is the day doctors admitted their diagnosis of a breast infection seven months earlier had been wrong and that Barbara was in fact dying from breast cancer. Her condition was too far advanced to treat.

Barbara had believed the doctor's diagnosis of a routine breast infection and thought it had been "cured" with antibiotics. But it was a terrible mistake.

Instead, there was a deadly cancer spreading unchecked inside her.

Now with a malignant tumour the size of an orange in her left breast she says bitterly: "I probably have less than a year to live. When the doctors told me I didn't have cancer I believed them - I had no reason not to. So you can imagine my horror when they realised their mistake and told me I had terminal cancer.

"One minute I was a normal mother-of-two who had everything to live for. The next I had no future at all. I had been delivered a death sentence.

"My youngest son was only two then and on the way home one question kept running through my mind: 'What am I going to do?'"

Her husband Stephen was equally devastated. "When Barbara broke the news to me I was shocked and especially annoyed because she had been given the all clear.

"But the shock didn't come at once for me. It came out gradually afterwards. For me it is getting worse and worse as each month goes by. I find it difficult to talk about, even with Barbara."

If Barbara has one bitter regret, it is that she didn't listen to her own gut instinct.

"I first became concerned that something might be wrong in July 1994," said Barbara from their home in Petersfield, Hants.

"I didn't have a lump but my breast was fuller and firmer than usual and the nipple had become inverted. I've never been afraid of going to the doctor's and I've always taken responsibility for my own health. So the minute I saw a change in my breast I booked an appointment."

Barbara was assured by her GP that it was probably nothing but to be sure, a date was set for her to be examined at The Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham, Hampshire. "I was examined and referred for a mammogram a month later," she said. "I was a bit surprised that I had to wait a month for a mammogram. I always thought that where cancer is an issue doctors moved with lightning speed."

Barbara was unaware that the doctor who had examined her at the hospital had written to her GP suggesting she might have a malignancy in her breast.

Over the next few months she attended more appointments at the Queen Alexandra Hospital.

"I was examined again after the mammogram results came back and was sent for an urgent scan," she said. "I was getting worried by now. All the results suggested there could be something wrong but so far nothing had been conclusive."

The results of the scan came back on September 1, 1994 - Barbara's 42nd birthday.

"My doctor told me I had nothing to worry about. He said: 'It's a very special day. I'm glad to say that we have done all the tests and you definitely don't have cancer'," she says. "I was overwhelmed with relief. I went home that evening and we had a big celebration."

Her condition was diagnosed as duct ectasia, a type of nipple infection, and she was given antibiotics to clear it up.

But a tumour was growing inside her breast and the cancer was spreading to other parts of her body. Valuable time that could have been spent stopping the disease was lost.

The professional, educated woman who had asked all the right questions was unaware that malignant cancer cells were spreading to her bones.

When the "infection" showed no signs of clearing up, Barbara referred herself back to the hospital in February, 1995.

"As soon as I took one look at the doctor's face I knew something was wrong," she says. "This time they became alarmed and whipped me in for new tests."

But it wasn't until March that she was given a biopsy which revealed advanced, terminal breast cancer.

The cancer was in her bones and a mastectomy would have been useless.

"Over the next few weeks I went through so many emotions, from rage to total disbelief," says Barbara. "I kept thinking they had just made another mistake. I felt all right so I couldn't believe I was dying.

"I had so many questions but the main one was, 'why was I not given the most conclusive test, a tru-cut biopsy, to begin with?'

"If I had just had that test seven months earlier I would have had a chance to fight the cancer.

"When I asked 'why not' the consultant replied: 'It's very upsetting and women can bleed'. I was gobsmacked. I told the consultant that a bit of discomfort was nothing compared to losing my life.

"I am just dumbfounded by my treatment at the hospital and I can't see why in this day and age I am dying from breast cancer.

"I put my faith in doctors. I always asked questions and took responsibility for my health. I could kick myself that I didn't know which questions to ask about how reliable the tests were.

"If I'd known that the tests carried out on me were not always accurate I would have demanded more.

"For most women reading this it will sound like a horror story. But if makes more women speak out and ask questions then I feel my death won't be in vain."

Barbara is devoting most of her time now to collecting mementos for her two sons. They will each have a memory box filled with things like their first words, first pair of shoes and letters and photos.

She says: "I'll also write a letter in which I explain my death. I haven't managed it yet, as I don't yet understand myself."

Barbara will be writing an occasional diary of her experiences for the Sunday Mirror.

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