AN eight-year-old girl who suffers from a rare brain tumour inspired family and friends to brighten up Christmas for sick children.
Arlene Bayne, from Bonnybridge, suffers from Craniopharyngioma, a type of slow-growing tumour. Only one Scot a year is diagnosed with the condition.
Arlene spent five weeks in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh after the tumour was discovered in August.
However, she is back home with her parents Jacqueline and John, and has just successfully completed a seven-week course of radiotherapy.
The brave way Arlene has coped with her illness has inspired family and friends to rally round and offer support to children facing similar illnesses.
Arlene's uncle Gary Dempster is landlord at the Carronshore Bar – and customers there, with the support of local businesses managed to raise an astonishing £2370 thanks to a series of fund-raising events.
The money bought electrical equipment for the Sick Kids Hospital in Edinburgh, including a plasma screen TV, laptop computers and portable DVD players.
Arlene's classmates from Bonnybridge Primary School also helped out by recording a special Christmas CD called 'Hosanna Rocks', which was sold to raise cash for charity.
Arlene's mum Jacqueline said she was grateful for all the support the family has received since her daughter was diagnosed with the illness, which will affect her for the rest of her life.
She said: "They have got threequarters of the tumour out, but the rest is located on her optical nerve and they can't take it out because she could go blind.
Hopefully radiotherapy will shrink it, but it will never go away entirely."
The tumour has affected Arlene's pituitary gland, and she has to undergo growth hormone treatment. In addition, she has developed an underactive thyroid and diabetes as a result of the illness, and has had to have two access points put in her head to allow surgeons to drain out excess fluid which may collect around her brain.
Despite these problems, Jacqueline said she is happy with the way her treatment has worked out.
She said: "She is actually doing very well just now considering she has just finished seven weeks of radiotherapy. I am quite amazed with the way she has coped because there have been no side-effects and she is still going to school and living at home as normal.
"She still has a lot to go through and we will have to keep a close eye on her. She is so young and doesn't know all that is happening, but her attitude has been amazing. We will have to wait and see what happens and take each day as it comes."
lr.turbyne@falkirkherald.co.uk