ON the face of it, Sam Shaw is a ‘normal’ bouncy five-year-old boy, full of energy, who just wants to play with his toy cars.

And if you weren’t familiar with the youngster’s recent past, you wouldn’t know he had been receiving aggressive treatment against neuroblastoma for 14 months.

Sam’s mum Christine spoke to the Lancashire Telegraph at her Hoddlesden home in Glencoe Avenue, having just returned from a four-month stay in Philadel- phia.

There, Sam had five courses of intense immunotherapy, thanks to a successful public appeal which raised more than £250,000.

The treatment could save his life.

And with just one course of treatment left – in the form of tablets – Sam can look forward to remaining permanently in the UK, and hopefully starting school.

Sam, who was diagnosed on January 2 last year, two days before his first dose of chemotherapy, celebrated his birthday last week. And despite the horrors he has experienced over the past year, he was in very high spirits.

“I am really glad to be home and I can’t wait to start at school and see my friends,” he said.

“I loved it in Philadelphia. I liked going to Smith’s Playhouse and playing with the cars and bikes.”

If all goes to plan, Sam could be looking to start school after the Easter holidays.

Mum Christine said she and husband Carl were delighted with how Sam had coped with everything life had thrown at him.

She said: “We are so pleased he has got through the treatment, as many children don’t make it all the way. It couldn’t have gone better and Sam has done brilliantly.

“He is so full of life. We have got our happy little boy back.”

Christine said after the final dose of immunotherapy there would be years of waiting and hoping for the best.

She said: “He will have to have a round of tests and scans and hopefully there will be no evidence of disease, as the doctors call it.

“Then he will have further scans every six months as the neuroblastoma could come back until he is seven.”