LITTLE Megan Sale was given a fourth birthday to remember after spending the past year battling a rare form of cancer.

The Daisy Hill youngster has undergone six weeks of gruelling chemotherapy, a seven-and-a-half-hour operation to remove a huge tumour in her abdomen and painful radiotherapy.

Megan’s proud mum, Annette Blackburn, of Lower Drake Fold, said: “She has been so brave and is my little ray of sunshine. She was desperately ill, especially when she was having chemotherapy, but she just got on with it and let the doctors do what they had to do.

“A lot of youngsters have to be sedated for many of the procedures she has had, but not Megan. She has been absolutely amazing.”

To celebrate her birthday on Wednesday, Annette and her partner and Megan’s dad, Darren Sale, took their courageous daughter to Alton Towers for a holiday.

Annette, aged 39, said: “Megan loved it. We played crazy golf and even went swimming, something she used to love, but has been unable to do until now because of her treatment.”

Megan, who has recently returned to Eatock Nursery, began complaining of stomach pains in the summer of 2007.

Her mother took her to the doctors several times and was told it was a virus.

Last November, frustrated because Megan was showing no signs of improvement, Annette took her to the Royal Bolton Hospital’s accident and emergency department, and after a second visit she was admitted.

A series of tests followed before Megan’s parents were given the devastating news that their daughter had stage three neuroblastoma — a childhood cancer which affects only 100 youngsters nationally.

Megan was transferred to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Pendlebury and had intensive chemotherapy, which ended in April. Surgeons then removed the massive growth.

During the operation, doctors were forced to remove her left kidney along with 98 per cent of the tumour.

The youngster spent two days in intensive care and the next three weeks in hospital before her three weeks of radiotherapy started at The Christie in Manchester in August.

Megan is going from strength to strength, although doctors have warned her parents the next two years are vital.

Annette, who works at Asda in Horwich, said: “Our family have been fantastic, especially my mum and Darren’s mum, and my daughter, Becky. We just can’t thank them enough.”