YOUNG cancer sufferer Madison Parton has been told she only has months left to live after scans revealed her tumour has grown.

The three-year-old, who touched the hearts of Sentinel readers when she was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood cancer, called rhabdomyosarcoma, was declared cancer-free in March.

But her family have been shattered after they were told the cancer had returned to her pelvis.

Now they are keeping their fingers crossed that she will make it through to the end of the year so she can see-out her fourth birthday, the start of school and Christmas.

Madison's mum, 34-year-old Annette Parton, from Sandford Hill, said: "We are all absolutely devastated.

"The doctors have said the tumour has grown and it will continue to grow. There is nothing anyone can do any more."

She added: "They have said they can't give us an exact amount of months, but it is not looking like we will have her here for Christmas."

Doctors said in June that there was just a one per cent chance that fresh treatment would cure Madison and if it didn't, she would only have around seven months to live.

Scans showed the tumour had returned, but not spread to any other parts of her body.

The youngster underwent two lots of intensive chemotherapy before having the scan on Friday.

Madison will now undergo regular scans in order to monitor the growth of her tumour.

Since receiving the news from the latest scan, Madison's family have vowed to make her final few months as happy and fun as possible.

The family were due to go on a trip to Disneyland Paris this week, but have now had to postpone it.

Annette, who has three other children, Lauren, Megan and Tyler, said: "As well as Disneyland we want to take Madison to Bournemouth beach. She went there when she was a baby, but she can't remember it. She wants to play in the sand, build sand castles and have an ice cream.

"She has been accepted into reception at Gladstone Primary School and I still hope to get her a uniform and get her there, even if it is just for 10 minutes, so she can have a first day at school.

"I just hope she can get to her fourth birthday at the end of August, then we can bring Christmas forward.

"We want to try to have lots of fun with her as a family and hopefully leave everyone with a lot of nice memories of her to try to outweigh the bad ones."

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Story filed in: Children | News