A celebrity fitness trainer has told how she promised her dying husband that she would battle to help find a cure for cancer after they were both stricken with the disease.

Nicki Waterman, who has trained Denise van Outen, All Saints and Kelly Brook, is recovering from a highly invasive form of brain tumour.

After losing her husband, Dennis last year, and her brother Colin Lehmann last month, to cancer, the 52-year-old is now challenging the government to increase funding and extend treatment options like the immunotherapy that saved her life.

Ms Waterman, a member of Belsize Square Synagogue in north London, supported an event at Speaker's House in Parliament on Wednesday as part of Brain Tumour Awareness Month.

She explained: "I want more clinical trials and funding so that people can have the same opportunity for treatment that I did. It's expensive treatment but I think we have a good chance of convincing the government. I'm very confident that we can get the funding."

When the 52-year-old was diagnosed with severe glioblastoma last year, doctors expected her to be dead by February due to the aggressive nature of the cancer. But she was given revolutionary private treatment for the "incurable" tumour after meeting an oncologist who had been researching a new combination of drugs.

Ms Waterman and her husband had at one stage last year been so ill that they considered taking their lives at Dignitas in Switzerland.

"I was very unlucky to get the tumour. I think it was the stress of my husband being sick that brought it on. He was the love of my life. I said to him that I would try to find a cure," she said.

Ms Waterman hopes Parliament will discuss funding for brain tumour research. More than 120,000 signed a petition calling for a debate on the issue and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is believed to be supporting the campaign.