A FOUR-YEAR-OLD Cork girl will be able to return home soon after intensive chemotherapy in the United States – having been told less than a year ago that she only had weeks to live.

Megan Malone, from Macroom, was diagnosed with sPNET medullablastoma – a rare type of brain tumour – last October. The cancer was later found to have spread to her spine, and Megan was given just weeks to live.

Now, though, her family are preparing to return home to Ireland – with Megan being given the honour of ringing a golden bell at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston when she finishes her final course of radiation treatment.

Writing on their blog, Megan’s family said she was also able to take on more and more solid food, and that they hoped she would be able to have her catheter tube removed in the coming days too.

They’re scheduled to return to Ireland next weekend – marking their first return here since they moved to the US full-time, to cater for Megan’s treatment, in December.

The HSE has covered over €200,000 of the costs of Megan’s treatment, while an anonymous donor has paid over half a million euro to cover the costs of her treatment in New York where she was originally being treated.

Megan was relocated to Boston in June to undergo intensive radiotherapy in a bid to ensure that any remaining cancerous growths could not return. She was given the all-clear in July.

Read more from Megan’s family on their blog >