A BRAVE schoolgirl was today spending her 10th birthday preparing to start fighting cancer -- less than two years after she thought she had beaten it.

While most 10 year-olds would spend their birthday having a party, Becky Baxter will have just one friend at home.

Any more would open Becky to the risk of catching a cold off one of her friends -- and with no white blood cells, a cold could make her very ill.

She will also be preparing to go back into hospital for chemotherapy, more than a year after doctors told her she had beaten the cancer which had been eating away at her fragile body into remission.

Becky's brave battle against cancer of the pelvis and bladder touched the hearts of people right across East Lancashire when it was revealed she had the disease in 1998.

Thousands of pounds were raised at events across the area to help pay for her and her family, who live in Victoria Street, Clayton-le-Moors, to go on a trip of a lifetime to Australia.

She made it on to the trip in September 1999, just months after being given the all-clear by doctors at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, after enduring more than a year of treatment.

Although the treatment then damaged her kidney, it was hoped that regular checks would soon prove she had beaten the cancer once and for all.

Becky's mother Karen said: "We had been optimistic but last month I noticed she was walking a bit differently and she wasn't herself.

"She went for tests and the doctors pulled me to one side and told me the cancer was back. I was devastated, but not really that shocked.

"We told Becky and she took it quite well. She knows what she has been through in the past and is ready to do it again.

"The cancer is in the same place again."

As well as undergoing chemotherapy, which uses drugs to tackle the disease, Becky will also have to undergo radiotherapy, where her body will be shielded by lead apart from the area affected, which is then treated with radiation.

The original tumour was found during an appendix operation in 1998.

Becky attends St John's Primary School in Great Harwood, where her friends are said to be shocked at her latest setback.

She once visited Lapland after being awarded the trip by the Wish Upon A Star charity.

Monday's trip to the hospital will be the second in a course of chemotherapy started earlier this month, which has once again cost her her hair.

Karen added: "It is a blow for us and it is a shame she will have to celebrate her birthday in this way.

"But we can't risk her having a party because her immune system is so weak so a cold could do her some serious damage.

"All her friends and our friends and family have been so supportive. They are all upset but they have all said they will be there for her, which is the main thing."