A FATHER of two young boys is battling an inoperable brain tumour.

Peter Trinnaman, 40, from Rayleigh, only discovered he had a huge tumour on his brain after suffering six seizures and collapsing in October last year.

After being rushed to Southend Hospital, he was given the devastating news he had an oligodendroglioma, a benign tumour that turns cancerous in 50 per cent of cases.

Mr Trinnaman, who lives with his wife Jane, 40, and his sons Jack, 12 and ten-year-old Ryan in Ashfield, Rayleigh, had to make the agonising decision whether to have surgery and risk life-changing side effects or battle the tumour with drugs.

After rejecting the surgery, Mr Trinnaman had trek up to Queen’s Hospital in Romford, sometimes daily, for radiotherapy and chemotherapy and has been unable to drive or work because of his illness.

He said: “It is an incurable benign tumour that was too far gone to operate on. It’s the size of a cue ball and was too near my brain stem.

A US study of 1,000 people who had tumours showed 50 per cent were still alive after 15 years. I’m just hoping I will be one of those lucky ones.

“I have to have radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The surgery could have left me paralysed on my right side and blind in my right eye with only 20 per cent vision in my left eye.”

Mr Trinnaman added: “I had to weigh up the options but I wanted to be able to play football in the park with my kids. I wanted to be a husband and a dad.

“Life is about the moments that take your breath away, not the number of breaths you take.”

Before his illness, Mr Trinnaman, was branch manager for Northgate Vehicle Hire. He’d never been ill before and regularly did high intensity, Insanity workouts.

He’d also completed an Olympic distance triathlon, which involved a 20km run, a one-mile swim and a 40km row.

He said: “I’ve always been fit and strong so the diagnosis came out of the blue.

“Northgate were fantastic. I had to leave in July but they were so kind. They bought us a year’s pass to Colchester Zoo so we we could have some quality time as a family. The chief executive Bob Contreras couldn’t have been more caring.”

Mr Trinnaman, who faces more rounds of debilitating chemotherapy, has no doubt how much his family have helped him throughout his ordeal.

He said: “My wife Jane is my angel and my inspiration.

“We’ve been together for 15 years and my goal is to see more anniversaries and to see my boys grow up.

“They are very emotional and know that daddy isn’t well but they also know that daddy is a fighter.”