Brave Eileidh Paterson is fighting one of the most aggressive childhood cancers – but the two-year-old never stops smiling.
The toddler has already endured more than 40 doses of chemotherapy, three weeks of radiotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and 29 blood transfusions and is facing even more treatment in the new year.
Her proud mum Gail, 38, from Forres, Moray, said she was her “little warrior”.
“She has gone through it all with a big smile,” she said.
“I don’t know how she has done it. She is always happy and chirpy. ”
The family’s nightmare began in May this year – just two months after Eileidh’s second birthday – when Mrs Paterson thought her daughter had a chest infection.
Her stomach was also slightly bloated and their GP initially sent her home with medication for trapped wind.
But just a day later, a scan at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital confirmed she had a rare and deadly tumour raging through her body.
And within a week Eileidh was receiving her first round of gruelling cancer treatment.
The disease started in Eileidh’s adrenal gland and spread to her bone marrow, lower left jaw, pancreas, and lymph nodes.
It grew so fast that it ruptured a vein in her right kidney and meant she had to have five litres of blood drained from her chest as her lung was being crushed.
In a four-hour operation in August surgeons managed to remove the stage 4 neuroblastoma, which by then filled more than half her abdomen.
The youngster has spent the last eight months fighting the disease with a cocktail of gruelling cancer drugs, as part of a clinical trial which could save her life.
Now the toddler faces six months of immunotherapy treatment, which is likely to leave her in extreme pain but could lower the 80% risk of the disease returning.
Eileidh is one of 2,300 children in Europe to be selected to receive the treatment, which aims to train the body to attack cancer like a cold if it returns.
But with no guarantees of success, her mother is looking to raise the £350,000 she would need to take her daughter to America if the cancer returned.
Mrs Paterson, who is also mum to Cerys, 10, Ciaran, 11, and Callum, 17, said: “Hopefully it won’t come back and we won’t need it.
“But making sure she survives is the only thing that matters.”
To donate to Eileidh’s cause, visit Facebook page, Eileidh’s Journey, or www.justgiving.com/EileidhsJourney.